Sometimes, It Takes a Bomb
by Canadian Hero
Summary: Vash was a Swiss citizen when a bomb killed all he knew, and he had to flee for America - despite not knowing English. He can't even keep his birth name without the fear of getting killed, and when enemies follow, nobody knows - yet one still seeks to find out. Will Vash be able to find safety with the least expected in time, or will his story end short at the hands of mistrust?
1. Chapter 1

**Full Summary (Please Read): **Vash was a Swiss citizen when a bomb killed all that he knew, and he had to flee for America - even though it nearly cost him his life many times. But even after getting there, the scars remained with him as flash backs of his past. When enemies seem to follow him everywhere he goes, he is forced into hiding in a country he can't so much as speak the language of - or live out of poverty within - when he's not even able to keep his own birth name without the fear of getting killed. Nobody, especially not in the public American school he had started to attend, knows - yet, one still seeks to find out. Will Vash be able to discover safety in the presence of someone he once thought as an ignorant spoiled idiot, or will his story end short at the bloodied hands of mistrust?

**Rated For: **Violence, war, inner conflicts, paranoia, language, and maybe - _maybe _- the rating will go up for mature romantic situations. If that happens, I'll warn.

**Other Notes: **I guess you could say this has...humour. Though I might have epically failed like usual at it.

* * *

**Sometimes It Takes a Bomb**

Chapter 1

* * *

"Hey - everybody listen up! There's a new student with us today."

The announcement was unnecessary, for everyone in the class had been listening the entire time - paying rather close attention to the short blonde up front. They simply weren't silent in their listening. Immediately, whistles and laughter came from the back of the room at the teacher's statement, and the new student scowled.

"His name is Vash Klein. He was transferred from Twin Falls due to the boundary shifts," the teacher continued, before turning back to her stack of papers. "To be frank, I'm just going to let you all know that he better feel welcomed here." It was clear that the last sentence was a threat, just whether the threat was directed at the class or the blonde was uncertain. Whichever one it was, it didn't seem as if the class minded, for at a nod and smile from the teacher, Vash began walking to his seat in the far back of the room - only to have a foot shot out in front of him in a clumsy attempt to trip. Vash's scowl only grew, and he hardly paused before stepping over the student's - a boy with platinum silver hair, Vash observed and recorded in his mind - limb. The culprit must have been surprised that Vash didn't fall for his action, because he didn't follow after the blonde.

The miscreant did, however, seem to become further determined to aggravate Vash, if the question he asked when called upon his raised hand after Vash had sat down was anything to go by. "You said that the new guy was from the Rim, though," he said, loud and clear, for the teacher to hear.

Vash didn't know what the Rim was, but the teacher seemed to be more aware than him and her eyebrows scooted closer together. "He is," she stated, though her eyes glanced towards Vash as if for confirmation. Unfortunately for her, Vash still appeared irritated from how badly put together the silver-haired boys attempt at bullying him was, as if Vash were an idiot, and it hadn't yet been replaced by his confusion at the inquiry.

"Well, the Rim's boundaries always go to Kanim. It's too far away from us," the student continued with a tilt of his head, and Vash could clearly imagine a large grin sprawled over his face. That seemed to slightly rouse the other students around the room who had been idling in boredom during the entire encounter. Whatever the Rim was, Vash concluded, somehow the teacher had got the impression that he was from there. He had no idea what a 'boundaries' was, but he assumed it had something to do with the 'Rim'. Vash shook his head. No, it was probably part of the name: 'Rim's Boundaries.' He distantly wondered what that could mean. Maybe his sister could translate it for him.

Anyway, whoever had first said he was from there didn't seem to know the meaning of logic either, for if it could be questioned in such a short amount of time - it was never very strong to begin with. Many students began twisting around in their seats to look at Vash for an answer. The silverette, though, kept his eyes trained on the teacher, whose name was supposedly Mrs. Koval according to Vash's school schedule that had been given to him the day before.

Mrs. Koval had started to open her mouth, until Vash beat her to it. "My _vater _did not like Kanim, so I came here. Do you have problem?" said the blonde, bristling with visible anger - even if he didn't quite know what he was fighting about. That stupid silverette kid was being cocky, and Vash was sure of it. He could find out who or what Kanim was later.

No one seemed to be shocked by Vash's anger issues, perhaps his scowl had given him away. But they did become startled at hearing his voice - a voice that made clear the fact he didn't quite know English very well. Of course, Vash knew enough to pick out the meaning of the short conversation being told - the conversation wasn't complex at all. He simply wasn't at all fluent - and in complete truth, he had spoken just then in English far better than he normally would have. It didn't matter, though, for the boy two seats in front of the blonde appeared ready to retort. He turned in his seat, and Vash was taken aback by the fact that the student's eyes were _red. _An albino? Vash - ever the one to judge - immediately became convinced that he found out the reason for the know-it-all's attitude.

"Vater?_" _repeated the albino, a wide, cocky smile - as Vash had predicted - drawn onto his face. Vash's eyes narrowed in suspicion, but before the blonde could ask - or in his case, yell and accuse - the silverette began firing words at the unfortunate boy in rapid succession. German words.

"_Also, du sprichst die grossartige deutsche Sprache? Nur Leute, die die grossartige deutsche sprache sprechen, sagen 'Vater'_!" **So you know the awesome language of German? Only people who speak the awesome German say 'vater'! **

Finally, the confusion was smacked onto Vash's face, and for once, he was at a loss of words to respond in either languages. Indeed, German was one of his first languages, and he was very clearly able to understand it far better than English - it was just by how fast the albino had jumped to conclusions that Vash was German speaking simply by the name he called his father was puzzling. But the confused expression wasn't there for long, and was soon replaced by a scowl almost as quickly as it had come.

"_Leute mit Akzent sagen auch 'Vater', Idiot__!_" **People with accents also say 'vatar', idiot! **replied Vash angrily.

The albino turned back around. "_Halt die Klappe, Verlierer_._ Ich hatte recht!_" **Put a sock in it, loser. I was right!**

"_Wen nennst du hier einen Verlierer, Schoofseckel!(1)_?" **Who are you calling a loser, asshole(1)?"** yelled Vash, and Mrs. Koval looked about to interfere, until the silverette spoke up in all of his super-fast glory.

"_Schoofseckel(1)?_" The albino seemed highly amused by that word, as he burst out laughing. "_Das ist eine bescheuerte Beleidigung. Sowieso, ich bin kein Schaf, ich bin der grossartige Gilbert__!_" **That's a weird ass insult. Anyway, I'm not a sheep, I'm the awesome Gilbert!**

"_Das ist keine bescheuerte Beleidigung und Gilbert ist nichtmal ein deutscher Name__!_" **It's not a weird insult, and Gilbert isn't even a German name! **Vash was further irritated at having his country's insults being - well - insulted, but he wasn't one to pass the opportunity to target his opponent for something of theirs. He would avenge the Swiss word later, when Gilbert was put on the defensive.

It was a victory for the blonde, and the effects were prompt. Instantly, the albino's face morphed into one of anger as well, and he abruptly stood up - knocking his chair over - and marched up to Vash's desk, where he propped his torso up with his straight locked arms. "_Es ist ein toller deutscher Name aus Preussen! Ich wette, du hast keine Ahnung von preussischen Namen. Dein Name ist dämlich, woher ist er überhaupt? Vermutlich ein Möchtegern-Deutscher__!_" **It's an awesome German name from Prussia! You don't even know anything about Prussian names, I bet. Your name is stupid, where is it even from? It's probably a German wanna-be!**

Vash wished more desperately than anything in the universe to have his shotgun on his person. He would shoot Gilbert straight between the eyes for insulting not only his name, but his entire country as a 'German wanna-be' if he was able, rather than battle with words like, what he thought, a 'sissy'. But Vash couldn't tell the albino that his name was Swiss, no matter how angry he was.

Gilbert was German, so he'd probably tell _them._

That was why Vash would have remained quiet about that small detail, no matter how sour his mood became. It was important that he remain quiet, if only for his little sister. But that didn't mean he couldn't argue. After so long of hiding his nationality, holding an argument about his country without involving himself had become second nature.

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how one thought about it - Mrs. Koval had decided that she'd had enough. At first, the woman was hesitant on interrupting their 'conversation', not knowing what they were speaking of. Fact was, she probably couldn't have, considering the time in which both boys were replying to one another. But when Gilbert had gotten up and walked to Vash's desk like that, obviously enraged, it was the knowledge that she didn't understand them that made it so important for her to break up the fight - in case it turned into something more.

"Gilbert, get back to your seat right now!" she shouted, making most of the class jump. Gilbert only grit his teeth, glaring a challenge at Vash, whose face was becoming flushed in the heat of the argument. Vash glared back with just as much hate, and Mrs. Koval finally marched over and grabbed the silverette by the arm, dragging him back to his seat. He sat down with a very audible plop, and the teacher stared daggers at him for a moment before turning to face Vash. "You're new, but I hope you learn rather quickly that you are _not_ _ever_ allowed to _ever _start something like that again. If you do, the both of you will be sent down to the principal's office for the rest of the day with a detention and incident slip to wave for the world to see. Got it?"

The blonde wasn't able to fully catch what the teacher was trying to tell him, as her odd emphasis on words that in his perspective were randomly placed prevented him from working out the translation puzzle - or, the puzzle of the little bit of English that he knew. He figured that she was probably lecturing him, though, and perhaps it was in his favor that he couldn't understand her.

The rest of the class period passed without major event, but for Vash it was much more difficult than he could have ever imagined. The other night, his sister had, thankfully, been able to read his schedule and tell him where he was suppose to go and which periods were what subjects, so he was aware that he was in 'Reading class', whatever that was supposed to be. It had taken his sister about an hour to explain what she had learned about the American school system, including what 'periods' were and that they were not the same thing as the periods that the teachers would 'future explain in health class', which Vash did not understand at all. As far as Vash knew, Reading period was teaching him how to read, and his sister had admitted that she didn't know much else on it either. Frankly, he was learning nothing - and it made him grind his teeth at the idea that the American students didn't seem to know how to read if it was required to attend such a class. What was most puzzling to him, though, was the fact that the students were reading out loud from papers Mrs. Koval had given them rather well during a good portion of the class. America was certainly a very strange place.

After the bell rang, the blonde was the first to escape - darting out the door as if he were on a sugar high. His own school had been small, with hardly any individuals at all, but judging by the size of his new school's building, there were a lot more students than what he was used to. Maybe it had been a favor by the office staff that he go to class late that morning. Sadly, they were no help for his second period.

He was correct. The second Vash stepped through the doorway and turned to face one end of the hall, he saw, heard, and _felt _the wave of 'high schoolers', that's what his sister called them, approaching like a bad omen.

Normally, he would have stood and fought. In fact, that was his first instinct, as if he were on a battle field with his trusty Swiss army behind him in neat ranks. But times had changed, and though the knowledge would later stress him and cause him great anxiety, he was put on life's defensive. Instantly, Vash escaped around the corner and into the bathrooms, clutching his binder like a pocketed pistol. He was suddenly immensely grateful for the fact that men did not wear dresses, for if they did, than the sign outside the men's bathroom would look like the women's sign, and then he would have been royally screwed.

Even so, no sooner did he enter the bathroom then he spun around and marched straight on out. Indeed, Vash was disgusted with himself for running like a weakling into the bathroom. He wasn't a cowardly little girl - he was a man. And he was going to act like it.

He had done an act that could never be made up for. He had run from all he knew and abandoned his country for a place across the Atlantic - for America. Vash knew for a fact that he would never run or hide again, no matter who it was that begged him to. No matter who it was that he was trying to protect.

With teeth glued together, as if loosening them would mean killing himself, the blonde ducked around the swarm of bodies, trying not to think about all the overwhelming perfume and cologne that attempted to slowly murder his senses. When he got to his assigned locker, he tried not to focus on how fast the girl wearing all pink sequined clothes was texting on her digital keyboarded phone next to him, and the way the words automatically changed and she didn't seem to mind. Instead, he went to the task of struggling to open his locker with a lock that he had no idea how to use. The girl next to him, after she had finished with her texting spree, stared at his fumbling hand and said something that he couldn't understand. All Vash did was shake his head with a scowl sincere enough to scare off ghosts and told her to "Fuck it", which he hoped was the way it was actually supposed to be phrased. Vash would never ask a translation like that from his precious sister, even after she had told him that he had to ask her for translations because the English language was so specific, and if he worded something wrong, than it may come out completely different than he intended. The girl must have thought he was talking to the actual locker, because she giggled and asked again, and he had to chase her off with another, deeper scowl. If Americans really spoke to their lockers on a daily basis, then Vash was seriously considering giving up on the entire country itself more than he had considered it when he found out that they really did seem to like stories with aliens as much as he had heard.

The hall had cleared by the time he gave up. Instead of facing the idea that he could just go to the office and ask for help, Vash got up and lifted his binder from the hallway floor, unzipping his schedule from the front pocket and looking at where the office secretary had pointed to. It was a list of numbers, and after wandering around before first period, he found out that the numbers represented the rooms - if the fact that the first number matched the number on his first period door was anything to go by.

Grateful for that small amount of knowledge to guide him, the boy slowly walked down the halls in a gradual way of getting familiar with his surroundings. A habit, one he was thankful that hadn't been lost. Not knowing where he was had always made him panic, so paying almost an absurd amount of attention to the path he was walking down had always been a particular necessity to him.

Just in case he needed to get back to where he had been before.

Quickly.

Vash halted his movement at the same moment he screwed his eyes shut and bit his bottom lip, willing those thoughts to flee. He hated running from them, but those thoughts needed to go away. They needed to. If they didn't, they would make him weak. He had to stop being weak.

Being weak was weak_. _Those inside his country at that exact moment weren't weak. He was dubbed as one of the few lucky ones to arrive in America without even getting hurt - physically, that was. He couldn't let stupid emotions bring him down. That was crap hormonal teenagers had, the kind of teenagers that complained all over the internet about how their parents took away their iPhone because they hadn't turned in their homework, and that they were going to cut themselves for it - that it was unfair. What was unfair was how he was apparently struggling with stupid emotions when the men and women of his country were struggling with their lives.

Weak.

He wasn't weak.

He wasn't allowed to be.

He wouldn't allow himself to be.

When Vash opened his eyes again, the world blurred like a bad quality camera. Immediately, he took a deep breath and his vision was restored. He was only human. He couldn't deal with all that he had to deal with.

Wait, no. Yes, he could. Of course he could.

No, he couldn't.

He could. All that had happened was so little. Insignificant. If he looked around him, he'd see life going on as normal. He was fine. What was he even looking for? Pity? Pity was a stupid thing.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

No, he wasn't stupid. Everyone else was stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid for getting out of his country. Stupid for having such negative thoughts when he should be happy. Happy that he had shelter. Happy that he had his sister. Happy that she hadn't died, yet.

So much death.

No. He needed to be happy. In fact - he needed to get to class.

* * *

When Vash got to class, it was already half done with. As it turned out, he didn't even need his binder, so he left it on the floor beside the door and walked around the circumference of the circular room to the front, where the teacher was engaged in conversation with someone else. A student, Vash noticed - one he hadn't seen before.

"Roderick? When everyone stops fooling around and actually realises that today we're singing, would you mind playing the piano for 'Blue Waters of the North'?" asked the teacher once Vash had gotten into hearing range. The student she had been speaking with, tall, brunette haired boy whose simple straight-backed posture suggested superiority, turned to her.

"Yes, of course, Ms. Qwein."

It wasn't until the student that Ms. Qwein had titled 'Roderick' went around her back and sat at the piano to Vash's right and the teacher's left that she noticed the blonde. Her face lit up - though perhaps it was a slightly hesitant move due to Vash's ever aggressive expression. His attitude had turned even worse ever since his inner conflict in the halls.

"Oh my! I didn't see you there. You must be" - Ms. Qwein waddled over to her music stand and began shuffling through the papers propped there - "Vash Klein?" She looked in Vash's direction with her glowing smile that the Swiss boy was finding ever increasingly annoying. Recognizing his name, he gave a minute nod and she continued. "Well then, Mr. Klein, welcome to the music room! This is second period, and in second period we go four days a week playing the instruments we signed up for at orientation and learning sheet music. Every Monday we sing, though, as I believe that is the best way to prepare our bodies for the instrument playing that will be coming up!"

Vash had absolutely no clue what the woman was talking about, as he had earlier figured out that Americans truly could speak English at the speed of light, considering how simple most of the English words were, and the supposedly named Ms. Qwein was no exception at all. Even so, he did hear her say his 'surname' and only 'his' surname the second time - pronounced incorrectly, but it didn't matter - and concluded that it would probably be the way she would address him in the future. Was that another odd American behaviour?

Americans were even more weird than he had first thought if teachers called students by their surnames.

She wasn't done speaking, either. "It says here that you - play the violin? Er, that's... I just didn't expect you to be the type that was interested in that sort of instrument. I was thinking maybe the saxophone or something would be more your style..." Though Vash couldn't speak the teacher's language, he caught on to the fact that she was confused. Or nervous. He couldn't quite tell the difference at that point. Distantly, the blonde wondered why. "Anyway, my sheet tells me that its already been paid for. That's great! Tomorrow we'll begin. Do you know the basics? I've never quite played the violin before, so I wouldn't be able to teach you much further than that."

When Ms. Qwein turned to Vash and her talking was halted, he knew that he was supposed to do something. The most likely thing he had to do was respond, but as he didn't know what to respond to - can mouths open and close that fast anyways? - he clung to the hope that she simply had nothing left to say and turned around to find an empty seat in one of the chairs within the center of the room. His hopes were dashed, though, when she repeated 'his' name - tone suggesting offense. "Mr. Klein?" she said.

"Uh-" started Vash, not knowing what to say. He settled for the classic answer that most American students seemed to answer their teachers with, as his observing skills noted during his earlier class. "What?"

Maybe that wasn't the best way to go. The teacher's smile faltered, replaced with an annoyed glimmer in her ice blue eyes. So perhaps she didn't have as much patience as she let on. "I asked if you knew the basics to your instrument of choice?"

It was Vash's turn to become annoyed - even if he had been annoyed to start out with. Either the woman spoke fast, or she spoke with big, complicated words he hadn't heard before then. Honestly, all he had caught was 'I asked - you - to your - of -'. What was her problem? Another reason why he should have his gun with him! It would be that much more easier to convey his point, and the best part was that he didn't even need to know the stupid language called English. Why did he have to learn English - couldn't they learn German? That would be a whole lot easier.

Instead, though it hadn't helped Vash thus far, he settled with the first word he had learned when coming to America that Ms. Qwein would understand.

"No."

Much to his shock - and odd sense of pride - the teacher said answered with the phrase, "Thank you," and gestured towards a seat at the far corner of the first row, right in front of the piano. He knew what 'thank you' meant, that was extremely basic English, but why she had said it was beyond him. Already drained from the entire 'conversation', Vash went and sat down in his seat with scowl. Yet, only a few seconds later, a stray chuckle made him lift his head again. As nature intended, his gaze went straight in front of him - towards the piano, where he could see the face of the brunette boy he had seen before.

And on the boy's face, there dwelled a smirk.

Too mad to even deal with it, Vash told him "Fuck it" and leaned his head on the back of his chair. He heard the boys answer, but only understood one word.

"I don't normally 'fuck' pianos."

With the feeling that he was being mocked, the blonde boy, with his renewed sense of rage and desperate longing to shoot the prissy piano player, repeated what had been said over and over again in his mind, filing it away into the back of his memory. He would ask his sister what it meant later.

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_(1) Schoofseckel supposedly means 'a male sheep's testicles,' but is translated as 'asshole' into English. It is used as a Swiss insult (as far as my knowledge stretches)._

**Hey everyone! Thanks so much for reading the first chapter of SITAB! Can't believe you made it through that long thing. Must of been pretty boring, eh?**

**I don't know if I'll continue this. I mean, I sketched out an idea of what this story is about - okay, so I went into ****_a great amount of detail _****on what this story is about, but I don't know if it'll keep my interest. The only thing I haven't sketched out is the main focus - how our favourite little Switzey gets together with Rod. By this I'm saying - I have no idea how to get the two of them together ****_while keeping them in character. _****That is why, as much as I hate to say it, Vash is going to slip in and out of character sometimes if I keep this fanfiction going (same with Roderich [and yes, his name will be Roderich in his story. Roderick is just the American pronounciation and, well, they're in America...]). But I've already done that with his paranoia and inner conflict stuff.**

**Late warning, Canadia. Good job.**

**Oh well.**

**Hmm... Reviewers get to feel Russia's water pipe, da?**

**-Canadia, out!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sometimes It Takes a Bomb**

Chapter 2

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Vash didn't know what to think when he entered his fifth period class. Either he was cursed, or life was just being its usual self. Whatever it was, he hoped it would go jump off a cliff. Or get shot. If 'bad' luck had a physical form, Vash would pay to see it get shot.

As fate would have it be, the minute the blonde stepped into his fifth classroom of that day, the first sight to greet him was one of the brunette from music class in the middle of the second row. Excluding first period, the other boy had showed his face in everyone of the blonde's classes thus far, and was beginning to get on his nerves - both through paranoia and his simple low tolerance that had been with him since his birth. It was also Vash's first class of the day that he didn't remember what subject it was suppose to be teaching, but the large abundance of maps scaled over the walls easily gave it away. That, and the book on each desk that had a rough outline of the United States on it. Patriotic, much?

Fisting his hands in frustration at Roderick's mere presence, he continued to stare at the brunette's back until a voice made him look up into the eyes of a tall, Middle Eastern in appearance man, who appeared none too pleased to find Vash glaring with murderous intent at one of his students. Without a word, the man that Vash assumed to be Mr. Garslovyan as read on his schedule paper shoved an index card at the blonde's chest and walked off. The Swiss boy knelt to the ground to pick it up again after it fell.

On the card, in thick black sharpie, sat the simple number '16'. Narrowing his eyes in confusion, Vash turned to look back at the Middle Eastern man only to find him handing out the same cards to all the other students as they filed into the classroom, just with different numbers on them - as far as he could tell by peering over passing shoulders. Following what he had been doing just about the entire day thus far, Vash watched two girls as they walked passed him gripping their cards and observed as they seemed to examine every desk before the girl with purple dyed hair on the right settled for one in the last row; she looked sadly at her friend as the other girl drifted off to find a different seat. Walking up behind her and glancing over her shoulder, Vash was able to figure out that the number on her card that was laid flat on top of the desk matched the number in the desk's right hand corner, written in with some sort of black marker that was half smeared off.

Assigned seats. Joy.

Vash could just taste the enthusiasm in the air.

Grumbling colourful curses in German under his breath, the blonde decided to get started by scanning over the desks. He began with the back row, as he was already there anyway, slowly moving up towards the front of the class.

There were only five rows of desks, the last row containing just four seats while the rest held six. After Vash was finished with the last two rows and beginning on the third, he could feel impatience eating away at the inside of him. Not only that, but a feeling of anxiety as all the other students seemed to find their seats quickly, and most of the class by that point was filled in. He had to keep shifting his body to squeeze past the backs of seats where people were already seated. He hated it, because it attracted attention, and at that point almost the entire row was staring at him.

No wonder. Vash was the new kid in town - shoved into that American public school in the middle of December. Also, what happened in first period must have spread. Distantly, he wondered how much the truth had been exaggerated - it truly sucked not being able to speak the language all those around him were speaking. He had completely taken that for granted back in Switzerland.

Switzerland. How he missed Switzerland.

Vash shook his head violently to clear his thoughts from drifting in that direction. But that didn't help, because it only caused those staring at him to nudge their neighbours to stare at him, too, for he must have appeared rather crazy doing what he had just done.

Panic was building. He felt spot-lighted and jittery, and wanted nothing more than to just sit in the corner and disappear. Why wouldn't they stop staring? He had to get away. He mustn't attract attention. He might become a subject of conversation more than he already was. He might be found.

Taking a deep breath, Vash willed his nerves to calm down and began going through looking at the desks as quickly as possible. It was noticeable, for now his eyes strayed over the fake wood surfaces far faster than his body moved. Finally, he just stopped moving all together and made his eyes doing all the work. By the time he got to the first row though, he wasn't able to do that due to the amount of students blocking his view, so he trotted down the looking for the number 16 - and soon found it, in the middle of the first row.

Right in front of a certain brunette boy.

Fuck life.

Vash wasn't in the mood to deal with that idiot, not by a long shot. Even if Roderick had hardly spoken to the blonde throughout all their classes after music, seeing his simple existence put Vash in a foul mood without any reason as to why. Fifth period was the first class where Vash couldn't keep an eye on the boy - all other seating arrangements had either placed the Swiss behind the brunette, or in the same row. It made him uneasy, to put it simply. To put it honestly, it made him paranoid.

First row meant the entire class was behind him. They could see his every move.

Closing his eyes, the blonde slowly lowered himself into his chair and stared straight ahead with a livid expression, concentrating on the tip of the 'b' of 'December' written on the white board. He hoped the teacher wouldn't be like Mrs. Koval and introduce him to the class as if it were necessary, or the brunette didn't suddenly become an asshole on top of idiotic and annoying and take the fact that Vash was in front of him to his advantage. Anything the brunette whispered to him wouldn't affect the Swiss because Vash couldn't understand English, so his anger management issues were easily controlled. At the same time, though, it made him even more frustrated because he didn't even know if he was being insulted.

He hardly had to wait five minutes before class started. As usual, Vash began to let his mind wander, since it had nothing educationally functional to anchor it to his studies. One simply couldn't focus on their studies when they didn't know what their studies were about. His peace didn't last long, however. After all - it was World History. Since when was there ever peace in World History?

Vash didn't know how long it was into class until he heard the name he had been given to be called by everyone in America ring through his ears. But when he looked up, Mr. Garslovyan only glanced at him and continued talking to the class. The only thing that kept Vash's attention was that the teacher was gesturing at him, and saying his name at random points in sentences. His first name, at that. No mentioning of his surname.

Anxiety build up was an automatic reaction, and Vash couldn't help but wonder if he had done something wrong. Was he looking at things weirdly? Whatever that had happened, it had attracted attention - no doubt. Glancing to his sides, he found the entire class looking at him. He didn't even want to turn fully around and see who Roderick was staring at - Vash could feel the gaze burning into his back. Stalker.

"I'm sure everyone has heard about the new student, Vash Klein, right?" said Mr. Garslovyan as he leaned against his teachers podium at the front of the class. Most of the students nodded at him. "He is the closest example of a refugee we have in this school at the moment. Just like the Vietnamese refugees - those that escaped the Vietnamese War, most of them had to go to other countries that more than likely didn't speak any of their language. They couldn't understand anything at all, and it was practically kindergarten over again. Have any of you traveled to another country?" A scattered number of students around the room raised their hands. "Awesome. If you've gone to a country other than say Australia, Canada, or the United Kingdom and any other popular American tourist destinations, then you know what it's like to walk down the street and not be able to read anything on any of the signs. Suddenly, you find yourself relying on only the pictures on the windows that you normally would ignore, the things people are wearing and the expressions on their faces. That's the only way you can tell what is going on around you, because you can't speak, read, or write."

Vash could catch a few words of what the teacher was saying, but not any key ideas to what the subject was about. Those were drowned out by not how fast the teacher was talking, but by how loudly. The Middle Eastern man's voice echoed around in the small room with so much force that Vash was suddenly reminded of his math tutor back in Switzerland, and when they would both go to the library to study, her voice had been so loud that it rung multiple times in the large quiet space.

Distantly, Vash wondered where she was.

Was she in America? Had she joined the Swiss military?

Was she above or below ground?

Did she even still have a body - or did they burn it?

A student raised their hand. Vash didn't see the student, but knew that someone had raised their hand because the teacher called on them and another voice entered his ears. "How does that compare to the new kid?" asked the unknown person that Vash could not understand.

They probably burned her body.

Mr. Garslovyan blinked in surprise, but the blonde was no longer paying attention. He could feel the eyes burn more intensely into his back and he shifted uncomfortably. At that point, though, he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to care.

What about Lexi, her daughter?

Lexi was little, just about to enter second grade, if memory served correctly. She had grown immensely attached to his sister when his sister had tagged along one day to tutoring, determined on getting some books and learning more math through observing. Vash had taught her that skill - of observing. Then she taught Lexi.

Lexi had always been eager to learn, just like her, and when taught how much she could learn through just watching, Lexi would always observe the way Vash wrote his math problems on to his graph paper and even the way he chewed the tip of his pencil while thinking deeply. Lexi wanted to be just like the big kids. Vash remembered, with a foggy mind, the small olive skinned and dark brown haired figure of Lexi waddling over to the desk where the librarian checked out books and asking Vash if he could put her books on the desk for she was not strong enough yet. When he looked in her arms and saw the large textbook for human anatomy sagging down her back, he asked if she could even read that. Staring up at him with the biggest black eyes Vash had ever seen, she said she couldn't - but she would learn how. Lexi had said that when she grew up, she wanted to be a doctor, because whenever Vash couldn't make it to tutoring since he was caring for his little sister when she fell ill, Lexi wanted to be able to cure them. That way, Vash could go to tutoring everyday and 'get smarter.'

He had always wanted to get perfect scores, finish university with perfect scores, so then he could join the military and fight for his country more than just the required time. Lexi told him that she wanted to become a doctor so she could care for his little sister like his little sister cared for her, and that way Vash would be able to 'save us from the bad guys' without having to go back to check up on her after compulsory service.

She had wanted to become a doctor so she could help Vash fulfill his dream, and not have him worry about his own family.

The blonde dug his face into the inside of his elbow crook.

"I thought news spread like a disease around you guys. Didn't Vash get assigned a guide?" At everyone's confused expressions, Mr. Garslovyan stared at them, horrified. "You mean that Vash has gone this entire day without a single student guide? How did he even get to class?"

Most of the class still remained puzzled, though others were beginning to get the idea of where the teacher was getting at. One of those others included a person Vash had already met that day, and their voice snapped the blonde from the deepest and darkest depths of his mind faster than anything else had.

_"Du hast_ _während der ersten Stunde ziemlich gut englisch gesprochen. Warum hast du mir nicht gesagt, dass du uns nicht verstehst? Weisst du, ich hätte dir angeboten, dein grossartiger Begleiter zu sein_!" **You spoke English pretty well during first period. Why didn't you tell me you couldn't understand us? I would have offered to be your awesome guide, you know! **Vash jolted in surprise, and apparently, so did the rest of the class as they suddenly realised what was happening.

"_Wovon redest du? Ich spreche bestens englisch, Holzkopf_!" **What are you talking about? I speak English perfectly fine, dumbass! **retorted the blonde automatically, twisting in his seat to face the back of the room where a certain silverette was sideways in his chair and leaning against the wall. He had no idea what gave him the impulse to deny, it was a stupid move, but just the simple fact that the supposedly named 'Gilbert' had the entire upper hand was unnerving and weird. Vash didn't like the feeling. At all.

"Oh really? ThenwhatamIsayingrightnow? Canyouunderstandmenow? Howaboutnow? Youcan'tunderstandEnglish,andthoughyou'resmartthat youknowtheawesomeGerman,pretendingyouknowEnglishin Americaissounawesome,loser!" yelled Gilbert in response, and Vash was rendered speechless. The stupid German kid was actually clever enough to speak at the speed of lightning, so even if Vash did know a little English, there was no way that the blonde would be able to catch what he was talking about.

The rest of the class seemed to understand, though, and they went completely silent. Even if the fact that the new kid and Gilbert had a huge verbal-German fight in the middle of the classroom during first period, it hadn't occurred to any of those present that Vash almost couldn't understand English at all. But it would explain why all they had heard from the blonde's mouth since then was 'Fuck it'. -Well, to everyone but one.

Behind Vash sat another student, a brunette whose glasses were slowly sliding off his nose as he continued to stare at the blonde. A brunette whose interest that had been slowly developing over the course of the day shot to its peak, and he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. He wasn't attracted to the blonde - at least, he didn't think so. No, he was merely very, very interested in the other, person-wise. Their behaviour, the way they responded to everything, the way they acted - their accent. Everything. In a way, the brunette had never quite encountered someone so different before, and it was a nice change. Everyone else in Roderick's opinion was either too stuck-up, obnoxious, or artificially friendly. It sort of explained why Roderick didn't have very many friends at all.

But seeing Vash - it sparked Roderick's interest so much that he was suddenly determined to get to know him better.

Even become - friends.

That would be nice.

"Does anyone here but Gilbert know any form of German at all?" Mr. Garslovyan asked, looking over his fifth period class in a mixture of disbelief and hopelessness. He still could not imagine how the new blonde student had been able to go through the entire day thus far without knowing English, and actually managing to arrive at World History earlier than most of the others. It was shocking.

Then again, the teacher couldn't wonder why Vash was in such a bad mood after finding that information out, either.

Instantly, a certain albino's hand shot up and Mr. Garslovyan was quick to shoot him back down again with his glare of death. Gilbert seemed completely unphased, so the Middle Eastern man merely ignored him and moved on, before realising that no one else's hand had risen in the first place. "No one?" he asked with a sigh, before shaking his head. "Well, I'm not letting Gilbert get a potentially well educated student into his grip. Does anyone, German speaking or not, want to be his guide?"

Finally, the teacher was rewarded with at least a quarter of the students in the class raising their hands. Among them, Mr. Garslovyan saw, lay many excellently behaved individuals - such as Kiku Honda, a Japanese exchange student there for the year. But before he could decide on choosing Kiku, who was rather silent and the man observed to be a particularly good choice as a guide for the new teenager, a different hand caught his attention.

"Roderick? You would like to be Vash's guide?"

Upon having his name called out, Roderick's cheeks slowly began to heat up. Without thinking, he had put out his arm, and by that point it was too late to back out. Composing himself once more, the brunette cleared his throat. "Yes, Mr. Garslovyan. If that is alright with you?" he responded.

Mr. Garslovyan smiled curiously at the other student. Only half the year was done with and he already knew as much about Roderick as all the other teenagers in the entire grade did. The boy was silent, extremely well-mannered, a talented musician, unsocial, and, well - friendless.

Very friendless. Roderick hardly raised his hand either, to answer any questions other than a topic about Austria, one of the World Wars and how it affected economies, and musicians. The teacher didn't know what the outcome would be other than Roderick had the chance to finally loosen up a bit. Perhaps Vash wasn't the best person to try and deal with if his sudden flashes of anger and unreasonable arguments were anything to go by, but maybe it could benefit both boys.

Besides, Mr. Garslovyan was always for taking risks. It was the reason he had gotten his job in the first place when he had failed history in high school. Smile growing ever wider, the teacher nodded. "Of course, Roderick. You're Austrian, right? Maybe you could teach each other the languages you speak as you show him around the school and the way things here work."

The Austrian wasn't the only one surprised at the sudden arrangement - he hadn't actually been expecting the history teacher to accept his request -, the entire class began whispering in astonishment. Taking advantage of the fact that most of them were awake by that point, Mr. Garslovyan turned to face the white board and reached up to harshly pull down the world map, grabbed his black white board marker, and began tracing lines over certain places in the east.

"Now, during the Vietnamese Wars..."

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The only time Roderick was able to wedge in a word with the blonde sitting in front of him was while Mr. Garslovyan was passing out worksheet outlines reviewing the Vietnam War. The second the teacher picked up his stack of papers and the class erupted into contagious conversations, he leaned forward and tapped on Vash's shoulder.

At first, Vash attempted to ignore him, but at more persistent pestering the Swiss boy spun around in his seat to glare hatefully at the Austrian. Roderick only stared back. Finally he asked, "How much English do you know?" rather slowly, much to the annoyance and secret relief of the blonde. Vash felt like a little child when spoken to like that and despised the treatment, but he was at last able to understand the other - somewhat.

"Not lot, Roderick," answered Vash choppily, his thick Swiss-German accent showing its face more than the other had observed when the blonde was merely cursing at him. The absolute death-filled glare Roderick was receiving only made the Austrian-American amused, for it looked comical combined with the blonde's terrible speech.

"Not a lot," corrected Roderick automatically, and the glare intensified. The brunette sent his own right back. "What? I was only helping you." When Vash didn't answer, Roderick shrugged and pointed to himself. "Roderich."

This time, Vash allowed himself to show his confusion as he couldn't really voice his question in words. The brunette repeated what he had said, "Roderich, not Roderick."

The blonde finally got what he meant, though remained puzzled as to why everyone called the brunette Roderick if his real name was Roderich. Vash decided to ask him another time and turned around.

Only to twist back again when his shoulder was re-tapped.

"What?" demanded the Swiss angrily, but Roderich only responded with a neutral expression.

"It is considered polite to give your name when someone else gives you theirs." When Vash didn't answer, only scrunched his eyebrows together, it was Roderich's turn to sigh. "When. A person. Gives you. Their name. You give. Them. Yours "

That seemed to only anger Vash further, as the blonde was quite aware how simple the phrases that Roderich had shortened his sentence to was in English. Gritting his teeth, Vash only narrowed his eyes and said, "Don't care. Leave me alone."

"It makes quite a bit of sense that the only English sentence you can speak correctly is 'Leave me alone,'" noted the brunette without missing a beat, more to himself than to Vash. The blonde hardly bothered to find out what he was saying, but it obviously contributed to irritating the Swiss boy further when he couldn't find out that piece of knowledge.

Silence stretched between the two of them for a considerable amount of time before Vash became aware of Roderich's gaze. He glanced back, and straight into the other's dark brown irises. "What?" he asked again. When Roderich didn't answer, Vash locked his jaw and attempted to stare the boy down with his glare, but it seemed that the Austrian had gotten used to the expression for he didn't even flinch. It didn't look as if Roderich would leave him alone until he gave the other what the other wanted.

Vash already wanted fifth period to be over and done with.

"Vash, Vash Klein," said the Swiss after a deep breath of annoyance. Hardly a heartbeat passed before Roderich was facing the blonde's back again, straight cut blonde locks swishing around the other's neck. Even so, Roderich let out a little smile.

They were making progress.

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**I cannot believe how much I'm 'fangirling' right now. I can't stop...I just can't stop freaking out.**

_**Chapter one of this story, in one day, has already been viewed in **__Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Hong Kong, Austria, Australia, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States._

**The second I saw that, I had a heart attack. Here's a little info on why.**

Austria = My birth country. I was born here, and lived here before I had to go to the United States for work and an easier living and from there to Canada. I love Austria, this is my home and always WILL BE my home. This means so much to me, it's shocking.

Finland = It is my DREAM to learn Finnish and go to Finnish University to study in medicine and photography. I would die before being prevented from going there.

Switzerland = Switzerland is the main character of this story for a reason! I absolutely admire the Swiss and their history is my favourite history in the world to study. Their neutrality during World War II is something to gaze upon in wonder, and being a mountain lover (I was born in the mountains!), the Alps to me are my definition of heaven.

**I don't want to bore you all with the rest because I think you get the idea. I never imagined that hearing of people around the world enjoying my writing would give me so much joy. But it has, and will continue to do so, and I can't stop jumping around!**

**Notice: ALL GERMAN TRANSLATIONS WERE MADE WITH PIECE-OF-CRAP ONLINE TRANSLATORS. I am AWARE that they are not correct because I translated between English and my own language spoke at home (shockingly, it's not German. I lost all my German long ago) and I couldn't even understand it. The German in this text is basically made for show. Now that I'm aware that there are German-speakers reading this though, if any of you would like to go ahead and translate for me, I would be more than glad to use the translations.**

**Also, any facts about Switzerland are gained through brief research and are probably incorrect. In other words, this is FUTURISTIC. Not in the science fiction way, no advanced technology, but everything is set in the future for of course something like this would not happen.**

**If you're still reading, please review! Reviews make me joyful and happy and get a fluffy feeling inside. I love all my reviewers and I will always respond to every one of them. So go ahead and drop me one! I do actually wait eagerly after I post a chapter incase I may gain a review. See you soon!**

**-Canadia**


	3. Chapter 3

_Before I go on with this chapter, I have to give special thanks to a Guest reviewer for giving me the correct German translations for Chapters 1 and 2, along with Swiss military information. I find it kind of silly how I lived in the Middle East for a time and in the country I was in, military service was also required by men, yet I hadn't given it second thought when writing this. (I guess I got really pulled into the American theme here). Wow, after living in North America for so long, it feels strange thinking about the places I used to occupy and how differently they worked. Again, thank you - I hope the corrections I made are more accurate!_

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**Sometimes It Takes a Bomb**

_Chapter 3_

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Lunch. Sweet mother of all things worth living for, it was lunch.

Vash didn't know how he was able to receive lunch without any lunch money. He had attempted to ask the woman sitting behind the computer as he typed in the lunch number he had been forced to memorise on whether or not he was able to eat. His speech, to sugar-coat, was not good. To be honest, it was practically a third language - a personal Vash language. The woman must have been warned, for she flashed a brilliant smile that hurt the Swiss boy's eyes his direction anyway and turned the head of the desktop computer towards him so he was able to see his number on the screen. Then she pressed another button on the touch screen above all the other buttons with numbers and dollar signs written on them. The button was in English words, so Vash couldn't read it even if he tried, but he drew to the conclusion that he simply wasn't paying. Why the woman was fine with that was beyond his knowledge.

Picking up his tray containing something interesting and peculiar, the blonde strode outside the large double doors exiting the lunchroom and sat on the grass of what he surmised was the side lawn. There was a small stretch of grass where he sat after a sidewalk glued to the brick of the building, and then a narrow plain road winding around to the back of the public school. Beyond the road there was a fence, and then a thin strip of trees. Vash could vaguely see the outline of buildings on the other side of the trees, but he couldn't be certain.

Lifting what might have been a cold sandwich from the middle of his tray, Vash stared at it for a moment, before setting it back down again and slowly peeling back the first layer of near soggy bread. He simply stared at the inside containing merely cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato. What caught his attention, though, was the cheese, and he winced. Vash recognised the cheese - he'd always buy that cheap cheese whenever they went to the market back in Switzerland, him and his 'family'. Every time he bought that cheese, his little sister would protest. She had always hated it, but Vash would refuse to buy her anything more costly than that, claiming it was just as good.

Impulsively, Vash stripped the sandwich of its cheese and threw it into the row of woods.

"Lactose intolerant? Don't worry, dude; you're not missing out on much." At the sound of another voice, Vash practically jumped out of his skin as he spun around - accidently knocking over his milk, which was thankfully not open, onto the grass. The boy behind him was sitting on a bench some ways to the left of the lunchroom exit, wearing a baffled expression as he put up his palms automatically. "Woah! What'd I do?" the boy exclaimed, sky blue eyes widened and eyebrows scrunched up on his forehead. He had a hair colour that Vash couldn't distinguish between blonde or brown, a colour that had become noticeably more common in his opinion to see around that school - the blonde had a sneaking suspicion that it was dyed half the time.

The Swiss boy stared for a long moment, before subconsciously repeating the words he was not only unable to understand, but had never heard in his entire life, "Lactose intolerant?" Sadly, not able to quite wrap his tongue around the contrasting syllables and already forgetting the exact sound, it came out more like 'Luke-toss en-tol-eh-gh-int.' To the generally ignorant American boy in front of him, the accented words ended up sounding French. Somehow.

The reaction was not a pleasant one. "Oh God!" cried the one with blue eyes as his expression morphed into one of dramatic despair. "Not another blonde Frenchie! Dude, we have enough of that as it is! We don't need any more!"

Dude and Frenchie. Two more Vash didn't recognize. "Dude?"

"Dude!" the American instantly repeated.

"Frenchie?" answered Vash, irritated already at his own lack of knowledge on what was going on, and the other boys loud volume and immensely expressive personality - as was being observed. Why did everything had to become suddenly so complicated again?

"Wait, so you admit you're a Frenchie?"

Before the Swiss could snap at the American from hearing that unfamiliar word again and yet to gain answers to its meaning, the lunchroom door crashed open as loudly as a push-door could crash and out stumbled a slightly panting brunette. Vash showed his startled reaction to the event with a scowl and glare, but the other boy on the bench jumped up enthusiastically and bounced over to the annoyingly-familiar pianist.

"Roddy!" shouted the American loudly, "Have you seen Iggy?" The dirty-blonde teenager must have already forgotten about the situation exercising the idea of the Swiss immigrant being French. Just because he could speak French didn't mean he was. All the better.

In response, all Roderich did was blink and step to the side, leaving open the door for the American and pointing through the entrance way. "I saw Arthur enter the office. He probably had to talk to the secretary again, Alfred."

That should have been hint enough for anyone that Arthur was busy. That wasn't the case for Alfred, though. Instead, he promptly ran back into the building with his lunch bag in hand, most likely to the office.

Roderich's speech was formal and far more mature than most of the other students in the school. That, and only that, Vash was glad for. It was because of that Vash could actually understand what Roderich said more than he could understand anyone else. It saved Vash from extreme amounts of frustration, but only for meaning of translation. Every other factor related to the brunette seemed to irritate the Swiss boy further. What made the blonde mad ontop of that irritation, however, was that Roderich knew it. Yet, he still refused to go away.

Despite the glare, the Austrian moved over to lean against the brick wall, whereas Vash was still occupying the grass. They eyed each other for a few long, tense moments. Indeed, Roderich would not leave Vash alone. Their 'grade' - as his sister had labeled it - was the last to have lunch, and it was before sixth period. After the speech that Mr. Garslovyan had given involving Vash - Vash had yet to figure what it was about, though judging by what Gilbert had said, everyone probably knew that he couldn't speak English by that point - Roderich had been eyeing the blonde's every movement. He tried to be secretive about it, but the Swiss boy noticed. More than ever the blonde longed for his shotgun, which had been left in Switzerland for obvious reasons. If he had his gun, then he would have no problems getting rid of the - in his opinion - creepy brunette who knew no meaning of privacy once school was out.

After fifth period, Roderich had swept up his belongings to follow Vash, but the immigrant teenager had anticipated the move and was already out the door, ducking and dodging the other kids flooding the halls. By appearances, there was no doubt that Roderich had been trying to find the blonde ever since they had separated.

The Austrian in subject clumsily slid down the school wall and began to open the lunch bag he had kept at his side, and at the movement, Vash instantly picked up his lunch and walked to the bench that the American had been seated upon. He scooted down until he was as far as possible from Roderich. The brunette paused, before continuing to take out his lunch without lifting his eyes to meet Vash's, who refused to let down his guard. Only after a few seconds did Vash allow himself to take a bite of sandwich.

Compared to what Vash knew and loved, the sandwich was the true definition of terrible. No doubt that was why everyone else packed their own lunch. American food in general was bad in his opinion, being so used to his step-mothers cooking. Whatever she cooked seem to have its own name, and that wasn't including the fact that she'd cook popular Swiss dishes, French pastries, Italian food - anything and everything, even Austrian cakes. Her melted chocolate was especially delicious. His step-mother seemed to put something into liquid chocolate that made it more than just chocolate, and sometimes when Vash had a nightmare and she heard despite his denials, she'd give him a small cup to soothe him to sleep. It worked better than any lullaby. That was why the suddenly bland tasting 'sandwich' - was it really considered a sandwich? - almost had Vash attempting to spit out every last bit, and he would have, had he not known how much his body needed the meal.

Vash had had enough of hunger for one lifetime. Besides, he needed the energy - gym class was next, and he was still required to walk the two miles from his bus stop to the building he lived in, all the while having to watch over his little sister and make sure she was used to the way she would have to move from then on. He'd have to catch her if she fell again. Though, Vash doubted Sam would be home, so he still had to save a part of his lunch as a snack for his little sister while they, in a sense, traveled. She, of course, needed the food far more than he did.

The Swiss boy eyed the 'food' after he took the bite, before continuing to eat it. He would have scowled, or spit, but by that point Roderich was watching him from the ground and Vash didn't want to show anything but neutrality to the stranger. Following a beat of more silence, Roderich spoke.

"You're oddly not dead yet."

In truth, it was a rather innocent statement. To Vash, however, it held a much different meaning, for all he heard was 'dead' and 'yet', and the blonde whipped around to face the other teenager with his own look of death. Taken aback, the Austrian straightened in surprise. "You mean what?" demanded the cause of the commotion, body tensed and ready to spring.

Roderich blinked, before muttering a very intelligible, "Huh?" Hardly a breath had been shared until he realised what he had said and adjusted his position. "I mean, I don't know what you're trying to inquire. Are you asking what I mean by, 'You're oddly not dead yet?'" When Vash didn't answer, he responded by gesturing to the blonde's plate and speaking at a slower pace than usual. "Every. One. Hates. The. Food. Here. It. Is. Like. Poison."

Everyone there liked poison? That didn't sound right. Or, maybe Americans were just extremely masochistic. Shooting Roderich a strange expression, a mix between being disgusted and being confused, Vash carefully went back to eating his lunch - never once taking his eyes off the other. All the brunette did was shrug and do the same.

It wasn't until the last five minutes of lunch break that something happened. After finishing his food, Vash turned and leaned his back against the table to watch the half-blocked view of the forest. It worked, for Roderich was still in the corner of his vision. The peace was disturbed by the push door being gently opened once more. A light coffee haired brunette emerged, and said something to Roderich. The pianist nodded and stood up, brushing himself as the girl watched from the sidelines, before swiftly walking over to the double doors entering the lunchroom.

Without a word exchanged, however, he paused at the entrance before turning back around and setting something on the bench where Vash sat. The Swiss boy pretended to not care until the Austrian was long gone, in which event he spun around and was met with a large red apple, hardly balancing itself on the surface of the wooden table. For a second, he seriously considered ignoring the apple so the other boy would know that he did not need pity over something as trivial as lunch. But it wasn't his own lunch that mattered, and he quickly remembered the fact.

On his way towards the hallways when the bell rang, Vash finally picked up the apple and roughly stuffed it into the pocket of his baggy green sweatshirt. He kept his hands in his sweatshirt to make it look like the apple was simply part of his fists, and when he saw the Austrian waiting for him some ways away from his locker, the other boy showed no signs of realising what Vash was trying to do. The Swiss boy swore he had succeeded in his plan, until he turned the corner to head to the gym he had observed on coming to the school in the morning and Roderich couldn't help but note down another personality trait of Vash's in his mind.

Stubborn. Far too stubborn for any good to come of it.

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**I don't really have much to say here other than ****_I got five reviews for only two chapters!_**** God, I love you all so much - and I'm not even completely Christian. Seeing every new review makes my day so much brighter, and I can't believe it. I'm writing this story just for everyone else's enjoyment, so hearing that you actually like it is entirely why I'm here, other than I simply adore writing!**

**I hold very strong dislike for this chapter. On top of that, it's short for what I normally type. No matter how much I edited it, though, I couldn't find a way to make it satisfy myself so I posted it before it was delayed any longer from all you. **

**See you soon, my mini minions!**

**-Canadia**


	4. Chapter 4

Note: All dialogue written in **bold **is being spoken in **German**. Might as well not embarrass the language of half of most of the people reading this fanfiction. Those who wish to go ahead and translate all of it, _I'm not stopping you at all. _I just felt it might be better getting my point across when the characters are speaking in 'German' to not have a 'translation' next to it that looks like something a preschooler wrote with an entirely different meaning in mind. Again, real German translations are extremely helpful! Thank you so much!

**To clear things up A LOT: **This chapter may contain offensive material to about three countries (aren't I just a nice person...) Please **take in mind **that this is set in the **future. **Which means: Switzerland's neutrality has been failing due to World War III that had happened before (that's a story for another time); Switzerland is obviously not neutral anymore in this story; Germany was not the cause of 'World War III' (It was China. Again, a story for another time); I'm not targeting Germany for anything offensive in our modern day, as this fanfiction was written in my free time and I have no hate for any country mentioned in this story; this is just for **entertainment purposes.**

_To be honest, I used the mention of the German-Swiss war that this story is based on (a made up war) to deliver at least two life lessons. _

Germany isn't a killing machine, as Ludwig states quite clearly. Poor Ludwig. He, in every term of the world, is Germany.

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**Sometimes, It Takes a Bomb**

Chapter 4

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It was simply another factor of misfortune for Vash that lunch had come directly after his fifth period class. More specifically, after Mr. Garslovyan's little 'talk' about refugees. Lunch is the time for eating and conversing within the day, and Vash knew this. They were the precious minutes where students wouldn't get a ten minute lecture for laughing too loudly. The opportunity had been, in years within all history, taken advantage of, and one of the most popular subjects discussed over the treasured time by students is _gossip. _Even Vash was aware of the fact. It wasn't as if teenagers differed in their habits depending on their home continent.

Mr. Garslovyan's speech had come hardly thirty minutes before lunch. Once the bell rang, everyone was out of that classroom in the speed of light for a reason; the discovery was still fresh in their minds, after all. Vash and Roderich had sat isolated outside the lunchroom, so they were unable to hear the stories soaring through the air - the realisation by nearly all the teenagers in that room that they had an English 'handicap' in the school. Oh, how they did plot. Maybe if World History had been placed as first period, the damage would have been a tad less devastating, but not by much.

And, of course, it was not to be forgotten that Vash was, at the moment, heading into gym class.

Gladly, teenagers couldn't do much 'advantage-taking' within school classes. But they could be far more clever than adults gave them credit for. So much as one word spoken repetitively would get on anyone's nerves after a day - let alone the better part of 365 days - and Vash was simply no ordinary someone with any sense of tolerance. He was far behind the crowd that had leaked into the gym room, and he was left to push open the first set of double doors by himself. Already, he felt self conscious, but that was nothing compared to how he felt when he opened the second pair of doors. Not even close.

Immediately, all talked halted in the line of boys standing against the far wall. Vash figured that perhaps they were waiting for something, most likely the gym teacher's permission to enter the locker rooms and change as they were all still in their school clothes, but he couldn't decide whether or not he should join them when all eyes turned on him. Not all at once, but after one boy had noticed Vash's presence, word spread down the line like a disease.

Vash was by no means a shy person, but he could feel a flush of embarrassment creeping its way up his cheekbones. He had no idea why they were looking at him like that, and though it made him angry, he seemed to have no energy left to glare and make an outburst like he normally would.

Following the boys' example, the line of girls against the opposite wall near another door Vash swore wasn't there before slowly quieted down as they wondered why their classmates had stopped talking. Quickly, though, they found their reason, and their gossiping started up again through trails of whispering. Most of the boys joined as well in their own line, but a good amount of them were still watching Vash as if he were a rather interesting specimen that required supervision.

At least Roderich wasn't there.

"Woah! Is there a new kid? Is he nice? -Wait. Why is everyone looking at him like that, Luddy?" came a voice, so sudden and loud that it echoed off the walls of the gym. No one seemed to mind, though, as every person continued their whispering and stares.

Following the source of the noise, Vash's eyes came across a boy with dark red hair, though having more of a brown tint than anything else. An odd curl stuck up from the side of the boy's head, and he was clinging to the arm of another male next to him. The other male was much taller than the red head, his back held straight and strict with hair neatly gelled back. He was blonde with piercing blue eyes - a much more golden blonde than the American Vash had seen before was. Vash might have appreciated the blonde more than anyone else he had met thus far just for the impression the other gave, had he not then spoken and Vash visibly winced. "I don't know, Feliciano."

German.

Why were there so many Germans in America?

Perhaps they were there to find all their enemies. They were slowly making their way into America to silently drive out all the Swiss. Corner them. Vash took in a suddenly shaky breath in a vain attempt to soothe his scrambling nerves. Maybe they were there looking for people just like Vash - Swiss immigrants. There really shouldn't be so many Germans in America within one school, should there? At least, not Germans with such thick German accents, showing they weren't native to the present country. It would make sense that Germans, along with Swiss, would flee to the safest place from the war that they could, but it was the Swiss that were in the most danger. That was why Vash was there in the first place - torn from half of his family, his home and all the property he had, his friends, and for the most part, even his native tongue. Besides, the two Germans he had encountered thus far that day knew English, by the sounds of it, rather well. If they were immigrants due to the war, what was the chances that they would know such fluent American English?

Or, maybe the other boy was Swiss, too. Blonde hair, blue eyes - it wasn't like that was uncommon for the Swiss. Vash had blonde hair and green eyes. German was also a popular language in Switzerland. But Vash had never been an optimist, and the possibility didn't occur to him. All he could do was stare until the other German noticed and stared back - and that was exactly what happened.

The staring contest felt out of place and odd, especially considering the two opponents weren't aware of each other's existence before that moment. The other students in the room felt it too, along with the short curly haired brunette/red-head that clung to the German's arm. Unlike the others, though, the clinging boy didn't remain silent, "Ve? What's going on, Luddy? Why are you staring at him? Why is he staring at you? Are you okay? Luddy? Luddy?" Finally, after many calls of his nickname, the blue-eyed German snapped out of his trance.

"Uh - yes. I'm alright, Feliciano. Nothing's wrong."

Vash could catch most of what was being said. He was aware that the annoying boy on the German's arm was named Feliciano, and Feliciano kept calling the blonde 'Luddy', though that didn't sound like a German name to Vash. Feliciano had asked what was wrong, and the German had answered something reassuring, though all the Swiss boy caught was 'yes'. He was certain that was the summary of what was being said, so he didn't even bother trying to translate the rest of the spoken dialogue.

Thankfully, before much else could be said and done, all attention turned to the wall of the room that contained both doors the girls and boys were gathered around. It was the wall to Vash's back, and he had to turn around to search for the reason towards the sudden distraction of teenage focus. Right as the blonde spun his body around, he was met with the sight of the supposed and long awaited male gym teacher. There were two gym teachers in the school, one male and one female, as his little sister had informed him from what she had seen of his schedule. The man Vash was looking at was quite clearly some sort of higher authority if he commanded all the attention of the room towards him like that, and the clipboard in his hands was of course another tell tale sign.

The man was by no means big - in fact, he was quite short and looked to be of Mexican or Italian descent. His hair was black and in a buzz cut, with a small but angular face and small, almost Asian-like eyes. Despite all this, he was rather handsome, and his body helped. The man that was to be Vash's gym teacher had a broad chest and wide shoulders, with a muscularly flattened stomach and baggy long pants of some sort of nylon that seemed to show off his torso even more. His shirt looked almost too small for him. The teacher's eyes focused on Vash, the only student in the entire gym not in one line or the other.

"What are you doing? Get in line," boomed the man. The male was by no means yelling, but his voice echoed around the space nonetheless due to the apparent fact that his voice was rather loud in general. Vash only froze, the echos of the other's words bouncing back to him in a confused order to which he couldn't quite make sense of.

"Uh-"

The teacher's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to seriously try and 'rebel' already? I said, get in line." Vash briefly wondered what 'rebel' meant, as it was put into air quotes by the teacher, but he didn't get long to ponder on it.

"I-"

"You what?" interrupted the other man. All the blonde could do, though, was stand silent, for even if he knew how to start a sentence - he didn't quite know how to say the rest of it. Something along the lines of 'I don't know what the fuck you're saying, smart-ass,' but at the moment, that wasn't entirely possible. Vash's face flushed in irritation. He was growing to hate English more and more by the minute.

There were giggles from down the boy's row, which was the row closest to the Swiss. That only made him grow more irritated, however, and he was about ready to scream something at all of them - not caring whether or not anyone could even translate what he saying. It was the thought that counted, after all. But before he, or the teacher, could do something unreasonable, a confident voice spoke up from the other side of the gym.

"Mr. Cahr, that's the new student." The giggling in the line didn't stop, in fact, it only grew for reasons that most teenagers going through puberty would probably assume, but Vash was only aware that the teacher was being addressed by someone from the female line - as that was where the voice was coming from. When the blonde looked, he couldn't spot the girl until she stepped from the rest of her classmates and started making her way over to the gym teacher. It was the same coffee-haired girl that Vash had seen take Roderich away during lunch.

"I'm aware of that," answered the teacher.

The girl only frowned. "You don't know anything about him?" The giggling increased, but this time Vash guessed that it was aimed towards the pair in the center of the gym. Even the girls on the opposite wall joined in.

"What do you mean?" Now the teacher, whose posture suggested calm command, started growing increasingly frustrated as he seemed to realise that he was, somehow, making a fool out of himself.

"He can't speak English. Mr. Gar told the fifth period class, but I was with Mrs. Koval at that time so I didn't hear until lunch," stated the girl, as if it were the most obvious thing she had ever heard of. "I don't know what language he speaks, but guessing by the way he's acting, he can't understand anything you're saying. He was the same during music class, probably the reason he refused to sing."

There was a pause. Shockingly, the addressed 'Mr. Cahr' didn't appear surprised at all. That was because it was all masked by confusion - thick and sluggish confusion. "Then what in the world is he doing in an American school?" exclaimed the man, dropping his arm with his clipboard to his side. Unlike nearly all of the other teachers, Mr. Cahr was one to look at the big picture rather than so readily take sympathy on an individual. The boys apparently couldn't take the 'hilarity' of the situation, as they burst into laughter. Vash, with no idea as to what was happening, was simply forced to stand there and watch the exchange of gibberish. All the girls did was smile to each other and lean in to whisper something every once in awhile, which made Vash feel slightly better. After all, boys would always be boys. What was going on couldn't have been too embarrassing if the entire class didn't join in as well. That would have been bad, for Vash was certain that what was going on involved himself.

The girl only shrugged, and the teacher turned to look at Vash with an expression that the blonde couldn't make out for the life of him, something between examination and a different hidden emotion. Finally, before Vash could become impatient, the man gestured to his own throat, and the blonde's eyebrows scooted sub-consciously together on his forehead. The girl caught on to what the teacher was attempting to communicate, and she made a packman motion with her hand.

_"Was zum Teufel versucht ihr beide zu sagen? Ich verstehe 'Hand'_ _nicht! Das ist etwas für Italiener."_ **What the hell are you two trying to say? I don't read 'hand'! That's an Italian's job!** At last, Vash had had enough. Sure that they wouldn't know what he was saying anyway, he openly insulted them - and Italians - without bothering to worry whether or not he'd get in trouble.

He wasn't, however, prepared for what came next. _"Scheint so als stereotypierst du gerne Menschen." _**I take it that you like stereotyping people. **Vash should have expected it. After all, didn't he, hardly a minute before, notice the German being clung onto like a lifeline?

The blonde wasn't the only one caught off guard. The coffee-haired girl looked startled, but, of course, she hadn't even known what language it was that Vash spoke, let alone made the connection that the German boy in the line would understand it. Some of the boys and girls appeared as if they had been expecting what had happened, but then again, they probably had been in Vash's first period class, and Vash was convinced that anyone would be able to tell that two German accents are the same accent. The gym teacher seemed to allow a smile onto his face for the first time in a long time, most likely amused at the expression Vash probably had splattered all over his face.

"_Wer bist du?" _**Who are you? **demanded the blonde as he whipped around and glared at the German in the line. The German looked startled that Vash had so easily pinpointed him when he answered.

"_Mein Name ist Ludwig. Ich schätze du bist Vash? Mein Bruder hat einiges von dir erzählt." _**My name's Ludwig. I'm guessing you're Vash? My bruder has said a lot about you.**

Vash didn't even struggle trying to figure out who Ludwig's brother was. _"Irgendwann werde ich deinem Bruder den Hals umdrehen, ist dir das klar?"_ **I'll kill your bruder one day, you know that, right? **he threatened.

Instead of what Vash had been expecting as a reaction, Ludwig simply stared levelly back at him and blinked, _"Das sagen sie alle."_ **They all say that.**

Vash opened his mouth, but he was too busy writing notes down in his mind for anything to come out.

Note: Obvious German sibling rivalry in terms of murder. Idiot albino has lots of enemies.

Before he could respond back to Ludwig, their conversation was interrupted by more English gibberish coming from what Vash still supposed was the gym teacher. Ludwig looked towards the teacher and nodded, before turning back to Vash. _"Das da drüben ist Herr Cahr, soll ich dir von ihm ausrichten. Frag ihn nicht warum er nach einem Auto auf englisch benannt wurde, wenn du es rausfndest. Du sollst ihn mit 'Mr. Cahr' ansprechen, das bedeutet Herr hier in Amerika."_ **That over there is **_**Herr **_**Cahr, as he told me to tell you. Don't ask him why he is named after an automobile in English when you find out. Also, you are to call him 'Mr. Cahr', as that is the **_**Herr **_**used in America. **That explained why all the male teachers were addressed as 'Mr.' Heat rose to Vash's cheeks, in anger or in embarrassment was not certain to even himself, at the fact that he didn't even notice that small detail on his own.

_"Ich nenn ihn Herr, wenn ich will. Ich bin kein Amerikaner."_ **I'll call him **_**Herr **_**if I want to, I'm not even American, **spat the blonde.

Ludwig's face flushed angrily. It looked as if Vash might have a competition to who could have the shortest patience on planet earth. _"Es war deine Wahl nach Amerika zu kommen um dem Krieg zu entfliehen. Keiner wird dir antworten, wenn du nicht die richtigen englischen Wörter verwendest."_ **It was your choice to come to America to escape the war. No one will respond if you don't speak the correct English terms."**

Instantly, as if what the German boy had said had been a physical object, Vash was frozen on contact. Literally - he felt as if he couldn't move and would never move again as Ludwig's words rang through his head. So casual. How could the German say those words so casually?

Of course. Vash forgot - Ludwig was _German_. That small fact must not have registered in his mind yet. Not even one of the 'good' Germans, by what Vash had observed. So what if he was being stereotypical and grouping an entire race together as if they were all the bad guys. In Vash's mind, they _were. _He'd seen enough Germans to last him an eternity.

History really never did seem to forgive Germany, did it?

Ludwig frowned at Vash's expression. _"Das ist weswegen du nach Amerika gekommen bist, nicht? Du sprichst nur Deutsch, verhälst dich suspekt mir und meinem Bruder gegenüber und du hast keine Ahnung von Amerika. Ausserdem ist Amerika der sicherste Ort weg vom Krieg, der noch Immigranten aufnimmt. Nach all dem hast du den ganzen Tag damit verbracht so zu tun als würdest du englisch sprechen, obwohl du ohne Weiteres einen Begleiter bekommen hättest."_ **That was what you came to America for, isn't it? You speak only German, are suspicious around me and my bruder, and know nothing about America. On top of which, America is the safest place from the war that's still allowing immigrants. Even after that, you went most of the day managing to fake that you knew how to speak English, despite how easily you would have been able to gain a guide," **stated the living textbook. _"Ich verurteile dich nicht dafür, warum du Gilbert und mich hasst. Das Land hat sich selber verraten. Nicht einmal Nachbarn vertrauen sich noch."_ **I don't blame you on why you would hate Gilbert and me, the country has turned on itself. Not even neighbours trust each other."**

With every sound crawling out of Ludwig's mouth, Vash could feel his anger boiling in the pit of his very soul. The simple _memory_, and hearing Ludwig talk about the war as if he knew every damn thing about it, that would make anyone go mad with rage. Let alone someone who regarded the war personally.

The war had started with a simple law. A simple, stupid law, and unlike America, Germany those days didn't even bother with pretense to listen to what its citizens wanted. Furthermore, since when did citizen vs. government wars ever truly remain contained within borders, as if borders were a physical presence?

Borders were merely an illusional lie set to claim a piece of land to dwell and give it a title. Borders were simply _excuses _for bloodshed. They did nothing. It was all the leader of a country's fault what happened to those surrounding them.

Vash could practically _see _another history textbook being written about the war. It had been morphing into a World War III sort of position, but as signs of that started to show, most of the world's countries had immediately backed out of the conflict. Not another repeat of World War II - caused by a law based on religion and race, led by a German leader. Cause of conflict being Germany.

Vash narrowed his eyes, and the air around them thickened with tension. Mr. Cahr promptly noticed this and spoke up, shooting Ludwig a questioning glance. All Ludwig was doing was giving the blonde Swiss in front of him an odd expression.

_"Deutschland ist nicht immer das Böse."_ **Germany isn't always the bad guy, **said the German boy, and Vash jolted slightly from surprise at how easily the other had read his mind. Vash had never truly considered himself an 'open book.' _"Der einzige Fehler, den man dem Land diesmal zuschreiben kann, ist dass es schon wieder zu einer Monarchie geworden ist. Warum beschuldigst du so bereitwillig die Deutschen? Warum beschuldigen alle immer so bereitwillig die Deutschen, ohne einen Gedanken daran zu verschwenden unsere Seite der Geschichte zu betrachten?"_ **The only fault Germany holds this time is when it became a monarchy all over again. Why do you readily blame the Germans? Why does everyone so readily blame the Germans without second thought as to our view on the story?"**

The tone of the way Ludwig spoke was unexpected. It seemed to Vash that Ludwig would be the boy out in the front ranks of a Nazi army, calling orders with the ever underlay of demand that anyone smart would be swift to carry out. No. Instead, Ludwig's tone of voice was almost hushed, yet loud enough to strike the Swiss boy with the words that he said. He seemed - sad.

In another time, another place, another mind, Vash might have said that if another person were to take a snapshot of that moment, they would be able to put a caption underneath it in a newspaper article stating simply, "This is what war does to children," and the idea of war would strike so many more people that much harder. For in reality, though Vash would never admit it, they were really just children compared to the rest of the world. Not even old enough to hold alcohol in America. Not close.

Vash felt as if time went slower than it actually did. His automatic reaction was to retort to the German boy's words, but he found that he was offered no room to do so. Ludwig turned back to Mr. Cahr, nodded, and told Vash that he had to get into lines at the beginning of each day. Vash felt himself walking to the end of the boy's line, where a familiar person that Vash swore he saw somewhere before was giving him an odd look. The blonde ignored it and only grit his teeth, staring at the far wall in front of him as he truly, and finally, digested what Ludwig had told him.

_Of course _the Germans were to blame. They were to blame for everything.

All the _deaths. _

They were the ones who caused those deaths - they could have just left the Swiss be. Then everything would have passed. But no, they merely had to attempt to fish out their immigrants from Switzerland before the other nation had even a clue as to what was going on with their neighbours, getting involved with the Swiss military while they were at it, starting a war with a _formerly neutral country_ as if it were in their plans all along.

Maybe it had been.

After all, it was quite a record to destroy, in every sense of the word, an entire country's neutrality with one war. What was once one of the strongest neutralities, as well.

It wasn't Switzerland's fault, Vash mentally insisted. It was all the German's doing. The Germans could have let his family, his nation, be, and none of it would have happened. They didn't have to do it.

-Or did it?

What _was_ the German side of the story?

But it had to only make sense that if Vash's story was filled with death, that theirs was to be filled with victory. Right?

Vash felt a light hand on his shoulder, and without realising what he was doing, he had spun around and grasped the hand that had been touching him in a firm hold. The owner of the hand let out a gasp, trying to tug his arm away, and Vash found himself looking into the blue, slightly tinted violet, eyes of the boy he had seen in his line. After a moment, Vash let go, and there was no hesitation on the other boy's part as he yanked his arm back and sped up towards the locker rooms, where it seemed that everyone else had disappeared.

Vash wasn't as quick to follow. Instead, he was sidetracked by his own thoughts, ones that he felt were turning on him. What was he doing? He was suppose to hate Germany! It was only natural, after everything that had happened.

But maybe the world was truly not as it seemed.

The Germans had bombed his home, yet there a German was, attempting to help him out on his first day in gym class. A girl who hadn't so much as looked at him before had saved - though he didn't quite know it yet - his entire existence from utter embarrassment and an extremely frustrated gym teacher. Finally, a supposedly stuck-up pretty-boy pianist who had most likely mocked him the better part of music class had given him an entire apple when Vash looked hungry.

Yes, perhaps the world wasn't as it truly seemed.

Then again, that's what paranoia was made up of, wasn't it?

* * *

Eep! So sorry that there isn't any real action in this one! Vash'll finally be out of school next chapter, but I felt the need to go more in depth for Vash's first day at his American public school. Why he is there, what happened to his sister, and some of what Vash is going through will be revealed later on.

Also, the focus _will _return to Swisstria. Soon.

_In other news_; we finally get more information on this war that basically makes up the plot of this fanfiction and is the reason our favourite little hermit gets the chance to meet our pianist!

Also, say hello to our new visitors from **Australia, Brazil, the Philippines, and even ****_Qatar_****. **There were many more, but it seems as if the country traffic graph for this story is only letting me view a couple random countries at a time. Right now it's set at America, Switzerland, Finland, Philippines, and Canada. Weird bar graph.

I'm not too happy with this chapter, because it really is just a filler put to inform you guys reading this what in the world this 'war' is, other than that it's between Switzerland and Germany. (The other countries aren't coming to help because who wants another World War?) If this actually does become a 'World War', it would be the fourth (for the setting of this story, because in this story it is set so far into the future that World War III already happened long ago. _Ignore the absence of technological advances. Shhh.)_. Oh my. I bet you all take it that I'm obsessed with writing about death and paranoia now.

_Anyway._

Read and review, 'dudes'! Can't blame you guys for not posting any reviews for Chapter 3, I admit it was pretty rushed, but I love hearing your opinions so much to the point that I will eagerly await any feedback! Thank you~

-Canadia


	5. Chapter 5

**Sometimes, It Takes a Bomb**

Chapter 5

* * *

It was all that Vash's self restraint allowed for him to not fly off those bus steps the second the vehicle had been stopped.

In reality, anyone would have done the same. The bus ride after school had been terrible, and though the blonde's English had been getting steadily better throughout the day - that wasn't hard, seeing as it was so similar to German to begin with - his knowledge of English vocabulary had been halted immediately in there. It was so _loud_ , which shouldn't have been surprising or concerning, except for the fact that he was constantly _stared _and _pointed _at. He did his best to try and ignore them to save himself any embarrassment that would undoubtedly form if he took any action, but that was an impossible task in itself. Somehow, Vash had managed, but he dreaded what would happen the next day.

Thankfully, his bus stop was the first one, but it seemed to also be the stop where most of the kids got off. He cursed his luck under his breath, but that only seemed to earn him more looks than the fact he was just standing there beside the bus hadn't already. Whether it was a good or bad thing that he wasn't forced to wait long would always be unknown, for when his objective for standing there arrived, most of the students in Vash's high school were still lingering around.

The middle school bus - a bus that Vash had been earlier informed went to the school for younger students - pulled up just across the street, having been on the heel of the blonde's bus the entire time. Sighting the number posted on the side of the yellow and white vehicle, Vash immediately tensed - before breathing a sigh of relief as he saw a familiar bob of short cut blonde hair and a royal blue ribbon.

"Big bruder!"

The Swiss boy saved his little sister the trouble of crossing the street by promptly glancing both ways and racing to meet her. By then, all of the remaining high schoolers were staring, as well as just about all of the middle schoolers, but it was obvious that Vash didn't care as he lifted the girl he had gone to find off the ground and hugged her. She was clearly surprised at the crushing contact, knowing her brother to be one that never showed unnecessary emotion besides general contempt towards others, but in no way was the younger girl complaining. In fact, she giggled and settled her chin comfortably in the curve of Vash's shoulder and neck as he half-spun her around. When he at last set her gently back down on the sidewalk, she stumbled and threw out her arms to balance herself, but he managed to catch her and she successfully steadied her weight against his own.

Without warning, Vash's expression fell as he looked her over. "**Lilli! How was your first day? Nothing bad happened, did it? You're alright, right? Was anyone mean towards you?" **he rushed out, asking questions in a flurry of German that even his sister had a hard time comprehending. Lillian smiled.

"**Oh bruder! It was great!" **she exclaimed, much to her brother's astonishment, as she made a little motion with her hips that might have, in another time, been her jumping and spinning around in excitement. Before Vash could ask, she went on, louder and happier than the blonde boy had seen her in far too long. "**I made a friend, too! His name is Emil, and he has the whitest hair you will ever see."**

"**He?" **asked Vash suspiciously. Lillian didn't seem to notice.

"**Yup! He normally is very shy, and he says he has some older bruders that go to your school that are really overprotective of him, and when he said that I thought of you and so I mentioned you and how much you take care of me even when you don't need to, and he looked really happy to hear that for some reason. I met him at the front doors before school and he led me to the office because I couldn't find it," **she rambled enthusiastically. "**When I asked why he was there to begin with, he told me he had before school jazz band and hadn't seen me before, and when he heard my voice, he figured that I must be the transfer student that everyone has been talking about!"**

At first, Vash was tempted to interrupt his bubbling little sister and interrogate her on her new friend, cautious as he ever was, but the boy couldn't even think about that any longer when he so much as caught a glimpse of her expression. As sad as it was, Vash simply couldn't remember the last time she had been so happy.

After all, when they had split ways in the morning, she had been crying.

"**With all the things that he showed me throughout the rest of the day, I'm so glad I met him! I never would have figured out everything on my own, or even worse, I might have run into some of the bad guys he told me about," **added Lillian, but when she opened her eyes that she had closed earlier to explain what she had said in immense detail and looked at her brother, her eyes widened in concern. "**Bruder? What's wrong?" **she asked.

Vash felt as if the silly grin that had been plastered on the blonde girl's face disappeared in slow motion, replaced by rounded lips slightly parted in her uncontained curiousity, and he could only stare. Without thinking about what he was doing, he rapidly shook his head, shoving a smile of his own onto his face. Small, but a smile nonetheless. "**Nothing's wrong, Lilli. How about you tell me all about him on the way home?"**

Lillian nodded, and before he could stop her, she was hobbling towards the foot of the sidewalk where she seemed to have dropped a pair of crutches. Leaning down to grab them for her, he eyed the pair of tools in his hand. "**Where did you get these?"** he asked firmly, and the blonde girl's face brightened once more.

"**Emil got them for me from the office when I tried to explain that we didn't know where to get something like that - I didn't tell him about the money," **she answered. "**He was wondering why I was trying to walk on my own." **Such a sad topic, and yet her face was as bright as a field of sunflowers.

Maybe this boy that she spoke of could actually be good for her. Though he wouldn't admit it, Vash was glad his sister at least had a friend like that.

At her explanation, the boy picked up the crutches from the ground and helped her support her weight onto them. As they continued down the sidewalk, Vash tried to lead a slow pace, but it seemed as if Lillian had much different ideas and she hurried up her 'walking' despite her brother's protests.

"**Wait, Lilli,"** spoke Vash, and the girl stopped in her movements to look at him. Without second thought, the Swiss boy fished out the apple he had hidden in his sweatshirt - still fresh - and handed it to her for her to eat. At first, she gave it back to him, but he only insisted, and she accepted it with a face flushed from gratitude. As Vash knew she would, Lillian put the apple into the small bag she had slung over her shoulder to eat later when the difficult journey 'home' was done.

The entire rest of the walk it was difficult, so extremely difficult, for Vash to not look down. In fact, during the entire encounter with his sister, he refused to look down. She noticed.

The two buses behind them started up their engines and began to roll away, but that didn't stop another certain boy in the high school bus from pressing his face against the window and watching the Swiss siblings go. He had been observing the entire exchange, his mind reeling with many new discoveries, including the apparent existence of Vash's smile and the way he had kept the apple the whole day after lunch, only to give it to the blonde girl like that. Vash's eyes had been cautious but warm when he looked at the other girl, Roderich had seen. Weary, but caring. Protective, yet ever so gentle, and as the other two continued down the street, the brunette saw guarded sadness in the way the blonde held his back.

It wasn't surprising, as Roderich could feel his own breath clench as he watched the younger sibling, the girl, clearly struggle with her new mechanical arms. It was necessary, but hard, as Roderich could spot through the sweatpants three sizes too big for her and three sizes too long, the wind blowing her entire left pant leg backwards like the wind would blow a flag - starting at the middle of her thigh. Whenever a particularly strong wind gust flew in, the pant leg would even flap against her other leg, which was as solid as could be, as there was nothing there underneath to hold the pant leg down.

There was simply nothing there.

* * *

**This was meant to be much longer, but I thought Lillian (Liechtenstein) deserved her own chapter here, if not only to explain why Vash was so concerned over her earlier.**

**What happened to her is for me to know, and for you to find out! Bahaha.**

**I'll be putting up the translations for the last chapter in there once Chapter 6 is posted, as I have to go to do community volunteer work after I finish up my required school work today, and then I'm busy for quite a while. Next chapter will be up Wednesday at the earliest, because I've got the year's finals tomorrow and Tuesday, and then I'm guessing Thursday. Most likely, I'll be jammed with math throughout the weekend because math testing is next week. Along with updates, I probably won't be responding to messages until then either - so do know, I'm not ignoring you!**

**Which would be the reason behind me posting this now instead of next week. **

**As always, I await any reviews thrown at me! I hope you guys enjoy~**

**-Canadia**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sometimes, It Takes A Bomb**

Chapter 6

* * *

When the bus stopped again five minutes later, Roderich was already off of it and racing down the street, ignoring his friend Ludwig's protests to slow down from back on the bus's steps. He was home in no time, as it wasn't far, and was quick to swing his backpack off of his shoulder and let it collapse onto the living room couch.

Roderich sped upstairs and immediately plopped onto his computer chair, spinning in it from his inability to stop his built up momentum. Homework completely forgotten, the brunette snapped open the top of his laptop and turned it on. His fingers were positioned over the keyboard as the screen loaded.

The girl Roderich had seen could be none other than Vash's sister, though the Austrian had been unaware that the blonde even had siblings before then. Normally, it would be none of his business and Roderich would leave the matter at that, but there was something in him that was strangely desperate to figure out what happened to that petite little girl's leg.

After all, it might have something to do with the already infamous blonde's attitude.

When the computer was up and running, the brunette frowned as he entered a new internet tab and stared at his default Yahoo! screen. He wasn't frowning at the tab itself; in all actuality, he was pondering how he planned on continuing. All Roderich wanted was to find more about Vash's life, which he realized sounded stalker like, but for what he reasoned was a completely innocent reason. He was curious. He'd never admit it, but the blonde transfer student had caught his interest, and he wasn't about to let the boy go.

As he thought, the brunette's eyes began absentmindedly scanning over the page as news boxes slide by, each relating back a different article telling about an event he had never heard of in his entire life before that moment. His train of thoughts disappeared, however, as the back of his mind registered something particularly peculiar.

All of the normally random in chosen subject news articles weren't so random anymore.

"Aline Zwingli Earns New International Nickname," Roderich read softly. His voice filled his small, nearly empty room with a whispery scratch that would have made goosebumps rise on his skin, had he not been so focused on his computer screen. The news box switched to another, and Roderich read that one out loud as well. "Art club at public disagreement with Zwingli."

The third title grasped Roderich's attention fully, and he took the time to read the description before it could change. "German Attacks on Switzerland - Denied," he said, before turning to the description below. "German citizens have been denying what is now considered officially as the first move taken in the Swiss-German War. One speaker in particular has-," it began, but the rest was cut off in favor of space and getting people to actually read the link the window led to in itself. Roderich's frown deepened and he nudged his computer mouse in a movement to click the link when a house-shaking rumble distracted him. He didn't stay to listen, as he had already recognized the familiar sound of his house's old garage door shifting open, and was heading downstairs just as his name was yelled.

A Swiss-German War - that was new. Rather interesting, too.

Just as interesting as Vash, though Roderich, strangely enough, didn't quite make that connection.

* * *

It was the first day, and already a mistake had been made.

Lillian noticed her brother's expression every time a wide gaze turned to them in shock as she limped with him along the sidewalk. The way people turned to their neighbors and exchanged words of pity was nothing sneaky, and she had no doubt that by the time they reached their house, they would be one of the most popular conversation subjects on the block. This was only an encouragement to her brother's winces and deep breaths as he focused his attention on the ground and tried to do nothing too drastic to every man and woman that stopped and simply stared. "**They've no knowledge of the word 'privacy', don't they?"** he nearly growled.

In a sad attempt to cheer her sibling up, Lillian gave him a soft smile. "**But big brother, they don't. Privacy is in German. '**Privacy' **is in English," **she said, but got no response. Vash only locked his jaw and walked with a little more force than before.

As would be expected, their five minute long walk took what felt like five hours.

When they finally approached their destination, Vash made his little sister drop her crutches so that she was sitting on the bottom of the unreasonably long case of porch steps they were destined to climb. Immediately, before she could protest, he tucked the crutches under one shoulder and curled his other arm almost protectively around her waist, picking her up so that her chest pressed against his shoulder that wasn't occupied with her crutches. His face twitched slightly in discomfort as he tried to balance her weight and climb up the large stairs at the same time, and she was about to ask for him to set her down, but he had already walked through the conveniently open door of the apartment building.

The fact that Vash was holding the petite young girl like a doll would have been enough to create attention, but as was already apparent, she was missing a leg, too. He wouldn't let her go as he entered the main hallway and passed by the secretary's desk, who stared with such a large expression that it made Lillian bury her face in her brother's clothes from mere embarrassment. She was suddenly grateful that she was being carried, for because of that, she could hide her face without having to hang her head. "Oh my god," came a soft muttering, before the secretary spoke louder. "Sir? Would you - uhm - like a wheelchair for your girlfriend? There's one back here that someone left behind and I'm certain they wouldn't mind if it were borrowed..." Lillian's face reddened, though not from the fact that she had just been mistaken as her brother's partner. She didn't in fact understand that kind of basic slang, having learned English grammar instead of the urban English language. Her face reddened because she knew that Vash was suppose to stop, though he didn't for obvious reasons, and both instances would and were making themselves stared at even harder by the people seated in the lobby right across from them. Of course, she wasn't able to catch most of what the woman had said, but she understood the word wheelchair from how many times it had been said and offered to her before in English, and that was honestly all the translation that was necessary.

"**Brother," **Lillian began, lifting her head reluctantly from his shoulder. He stopped. "**The lady behind the desk was speaking with you. She asked if you'd like a wheelchair for me."** The secretary's confusion only increased when she recognized the two blonde's speaking in German, though she didn't question the fact as Vash turned around to look at her, then back at his sister.

Vash was one who had a habit of refusing help in every situation possible, and he was about to until he remembered how much easier it would be for Lillian to gain a wheelchair instead of her cursed crutches. To the blonde girls absolute shock, as her brother accepting the offer had never crossed her mind, he faced the lady again. "Yes," he said, and even though he pronounced it more like 'Yaw-s', she nodded. Vash adjusted his grip on his sister as he followed her to the back of the desk, where she set to work harshly attempting to unfold the before mentioned wheelchair. When the secretary succeeded, she presented it to the late teenager, who gently set Lillian in the seat as carefully as a mother would caress her newborn baby. The woman blinked at what she considered a beautiful gesture, lost for words as Vash began to wheel his sister away. She didn't even notice that it wasn't he, but actually the little girl, who called her words of thanks over her shoulder kindly, despite everything.

Numbly, the secretary went back to her post and put a hand over her mouth to keep from crying.

* * *

"**That **_**arschloch,**_" cursed Vash as he stopped in front of an apartment door in the building. In gold lettering, the top read 'B1', just as they were told where they're room would be, only there was one problem. They couldn't get _in _the room. "**Is he mocking me or something?"**

Lillian didn't answer, simply watched as her big brother searched for the keys to their room, even though he had already realised that the man who had given them the room had forgotten to give them access to it. Soon enough, Vash started a search for his mobile, until he found out that he no longer owned one. "**For God's sake, America itself is an ass,"** he muttered under his breath, not paying any attention to the fact that he had vowed himself not to say swears in front of his sister. "**I miss S-ermany. I miss Germany," **he said even quieter, though it was obvious that he did not mean the lie that he had told himself.

No matter what he said, nothing could change the situation they were in, and Vash went back to sit on the ground after pacing about for a reasonable amount of time. At Lillian's pleas, he lifted her from her wheelchair and let her sit on his lap. It made her feel safe. Sadly, that feeling was what caused mistaken number one to occur, which would drastically increase the two's already present paranoia.

The blonde girl began to get tired, but not from being busy. She was tired from the abnormal amount of being social that she'd had to do at school, a practice she hadn't been used to for months. It drained her. Not only that, but adjusting to a new school was hard, let alone a new country, let alone a new _language._ She struggled in reading her homework during class, and that was while asking the teacher - luckily, she could speak English far better than she could write it. Then there was the emotional work in having to deal with hundreds of eyes on her all day, along with the physical work of using her only leg as a stand for what felt like dead, useless weight. Lillian could in no way be judged for her exhaustion. Eyes drooping, she began to go limp against Vash's chest, taking in a big yawn and murmuring tiredly, *"**Big brother, I'm tired. When do you think-,"** but that was as far as she got.

Lillian was so startled by the way Vash spun her around to face him with a painful grip squeezing her shoulder bones that she cried out and tried to struggle out of reach. Her heart was racing by the time they were staring each other in the eyes, and adrenaline was pumping through her veins like poison. She got so scared, in fact, that tears blurred her vision and dropped dominoes down her cheeks with an audio to follow.

"**Don't you **_**dare**_**," **he whispered with a growl, shaking her shoulders roughly, "_**ever**_ **speak that language of death again. I swear to God, **_**look at me.**_" Instinctively, Lillian had looked towards the floor as Vash spoke, and when she glanced back up, he pretended not to notice her tears. She knew he noticed, though, through the way that, even if for a second, his mouth twitched down in the corners of his lips in an emotion she couldn't make out. "**If you do, I promise that I will hit you so hard that you won't be able to move for **_**weeks**_**."** Lillian tried to muffle her sobs with her hand, but her eyes just wouldn't stop crying, and they dripped onto Vash's shirt. "**Do you understand?" **he said, then repeated, "_**Do you understand me?"**_

She nodded, but that didn't satisfy Vash, and he shook her again. Before he could speak again, she bobbed her head so hard that it spun and replied with what could only be classified as a choke. "**Yes," **she answered.

"**Good," **said Vash, and with a soundless scream of fear, Lillian did the only thing she knew that she could when she was so afraid. She curled her body into her brother's neck and he held her, like she silently knew he would, and rocked her ever so gently while his own heart beat pained him, for even though he was who hurt her, he hurt her for her, and in a little corner of her mind, she knew that. It was just an accident, a mistake, but most people who died in the world never even got the chance to make mistakes, and the two siblings were so aware of the fact that it was almost physical agony.

Or, maybe it was physical agony. In war, a person really can't tell the difference.

* * *

**A/N: **

**Dear **_**Jesus Christ **_**(and I'm not even Christian), you don't even KNOW how sorry I am for being so inactive for the last, what, - month? Two months? **_**How long has it even been?**_ **I make it worse by updating with such a short chapter, too! This isn't a filler, and many chapters are going to be like this because I still need to slowly explain what's going on, but it sure does freaking feel like it, doesn't it? I'm so mad at myself for leaving everyone hanging.**

**What happened was that my internet went down, and I couldn't write, because my laptop doesn't have word (that I can find) and I use Google Drive. Money has been terribly hard to get by, so we had to cut cable and internet. I don't care about cable - I never use it for anything other than the news and the occasional history channel -, but going without internet was seriously difficult considering all of my school work, education, and free time activities take place in it. Damn it, even my job. I managed to find an alternative for those, but that left no time for writing, and now that we have some more money I was able to get it back.**

**As a warning: I might have to lay it down again in a week, or even a few days. The original date had been June 11th. Again, I'm so incredibly sorry...**

**Right, right, onto the chapter notes...**

_* = When text is bolded and underlined at the same time, it means that the text is being spoken in the Swiss-German dialect. My uncertainty of this fact was confirmed by an amazing person from Switzerland with the username 'brainyspecs', and whom I absolutely love right now for educating me on Switzerland, also being the person who has been giving me the German translations throughout the story so far. I give them thanks for all that on top of unintentionally helping me out with a plot hole. Again, thank you!_

**-Canadia, out.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Sometimes, It Takes A Bomb**

Chapter 7

* * *

Roughly three hours later, a brunette man was walking down the hallway of an apartment building when he stopped to stare at the scene before him. Two blonde teenagers, clutching each other, had fallen asleep against the wall near apartment room B1, a wheelchair beside them leaning against the door. He was forced to smile at the image, taking out his cellphone and snapping a quick picture before stuffing it back into his pocket and pushing the wheelchair farther away from him. From there, the dusty haired man took out a pair of keys from his wallet and unlocked the door, nudging it open, before lifting one of the blondes, a girl, from her brother's grip, and entering the room.

He set the girl on one of the beds, after pulling back the covers, going out again to lift the boy; who was far heavier than the girl, but still lighter than he should have been; and placing him on the opposite bed. The man made sure the bed sheets were tucked in nicely before moving out, never once touching another object. Right before he left, he took out a wipe covered in a peculiar smelling scent from a bag in his wallet and covered both of his palms with it, wiping the keys he had used to open the door, before finally setting the keys on a table beside a small television in the room with them.

With the wipes still on his hands, the man with his hair the colour of dust brought in the wheelchair and closed the door with his leave, making sure to cover the knob in the liquid of the wipe before turning and going back to where he originally came from.

* * *

When Vash finally awoke, Lillian was still lying in her bed in the same position the man had left her. It took him a moment to catch up to his surroundings and come to the conclusion that he had been placed in the room while he had been sleeping, but once he did, he slowly rose from the bed and began tiptoeing his way to the table beside the television.

There they were. The keys.

Just as the man had promised.

Slowly, as if they would shatter at any extra movement, the blonde boy scooped up the keys and held them in his fist, feeling their weight in comfort. He glanced over at his sister, who remained peaceful in every term of the word, before pulling a chair out from under the table and picking up the laptop that sat on its seat. He stared at the laptop for a moment until he decided to gingerly lift up the screen, pressing the on button with just as much caution. It took split seconds for the screen to light up, as it was a newly bought laptop, and startled, Vash jumped back, hitting his calf on the corner of the bed and cursing under his breath.

Coward. Only those who are weak are cowards.

Angry at himself for jumping like that, Vash took a deep breath and sat down in the chair with enough force to scare, waiting for the desktop to load. When it did, he was greeted with an odd desktop of a football - soccer in America, Lillian had told him - player the blonde was certain he had never seen before, posing with a knee bent and ready to kick the ball. In the corner of the screen, on a yellow digital sticky note, were the typed words: **FRANK LAMPARD. DIED AT AGE 41 FROM A BOATING INCIDENT. ONE OF THE BEST ENGLISH SOCCER PLAYERS IN HISTORY. GOT 7 PENALTY KICK GOALS FOR ENGLAND, THE MOST OF ANY ENGLISH SOCCER PLAYER. YOU ADMIRE HIM. YOU LOVE SOCCER AND WANT TO PLAY FOR THE ENGLISH SOCCER TEAM WHEN YOU'RE OLDER. BY THE WAY; ENGLAND IS YOUR FAVOURITE COUNTRY AND YOU WANT TO LIVE THERE ONE DAY. DO NOT ERASE THIS NOTE. JUST DELETE THE WORDS.**

Vash scowled at the paragraph, writing his own note down in his mind while he was at it.

Note to self:Learn how to play soccer/football.

...And English.

After examining the picture on his desktop for a long moment, making sure he had Lampard's appearance pasted into his memory as well as what the note pointed out, he backspaced all the words in the note and started looking elsewhere on his screen. A blinking icon at the bottom caught his attention, and once taking a second to pause, he hesitantly clicked on it. An AIM window popping up, something that Vash was at last familiar with, and in the window there was a message.

EestlaneEstländisch: **Getting comfortable? Hope so. Sam better be treating you well, and if he isn't, just tell me and I'll make sure to have a word. I left some money with him in case you and Lilli wanted to get a treat, or Sam acted like Sam and spent all the money he had on gambling. He said he left it near the keys, so I'm just going to guess that you know where the hell that is, since I don't. Don't spend it on shopping sprees. It's a pain in the ass to transfer euros to dollars when the person doing it for you likes putting a stick up theirs. **

There was only one person who would literally put 'Estonian' in German as their username, along with what Vash could only assume was 'Estonian' again, but actually in Estonian. Shaking his head, he began decoding the message exactly as he had been earlier told to. It was too risky talking through technology that anyone could be looking at without a cover story, and out of all people, the Estonian technology nerd, Eduard, back in Switzerland knew that. Or maybe he was in Austria at that moment. There was no way, in Vash's guesses, that Eduard would risk sending any sort of message, coded or not, to him from Switzerland.

Vash had never learned the man who had taken him to America under the cover of being his uncle's real name, but he was told to call him Sam. Shopping would mean getting clothes, so not going on shopping sprees would be telling him to not spend too much money on clothes. A treat was a food, so that meant money had been left for food, which Sam wouldn't give him if the gambling part was anything to go by, and that food should have more money spent on then shopping considering the order they were put in. A reminder, really. By making sure Sam was treating him well, Vash was certain that Eduard wanted to know whether or not the dusty brown haired man was checking up on him or not. In the end, there was no complicated coding to it, and that was what made it convincing.

He paused with his hands over the keyboard, staring at the screen, until he had decided on a way to reply back. Not having made his own AIM account, the blonde was interested to see what Eduard had made his username as.

Vash Lampard: **Im still mad at you. couldn't Sam move to england instead of america? Id rather be there right now. i dont need a damn babysitter either. he keeps doing random shit acting like Lils and my mum or something. i didnt see any money Lil probably hid it to make sure Sam wouldnt take it while I was sleeping. IM not the one who goes on 'shopping sprees' just to let you know. thatd be sams slut girlfriend**

Vash Lampard? Honestly? Vash felt himself twitch as he looked at the corner of his AIM window and confirmed his thoughts with the same name written there. Eduard didn't mention that he was apparently obsessed with the guy. Taking a deep breath, he read over his message, hoping that the technology nerd would receive and understand it, before finally sending it and sitting back in his chair. After a moment or two, he began navigating his AIM account, grateful that Eduard had chosen a messenger that Vash knew how to use. He was half-heartedly shocked to find that his entire contacts list was filled with multiple people he'd never seen the usernames to before in his life, but that shock subsided when he remembered what Eduard had told him before Vash had boarded his flight to the United States.

_Eduard, glasses perched like a bird on his nose, looked his rather shorter blonde friend up and down before handing him his suitcase. He smiled, though it looked a little forced. "__**Good luck, Mr. Klein," **__he said, a secret reminder to Vash of his supposed new last name. His voice held a thick Estonian accent, and he stumbled slightly over his German pronunciations, but it had gotten much better since Vash had first met him in the fifth grade. At that time, Eduard had known hardly any German at all. It had been nearly a decade since then, but it seemed that Eduard still had trouble with the German sounds, especially the umlauts. Vash nodded and began to walk away, until Eduard reached forward and grasped his shoulder, whispering in a low, urgent tone. _"_**I know you don't like hearing this, but you have to remember to go with what is thrown at you. I've built an entire background life. Anyone who speaks with you casually and familiarly, go with it and don't act suspicious, whether possible enemy or not. I'm serious. The second you touch foot on that plane, you're a completely new person. I'm still not even comfortable letting you keep your first name, but you're just lucky that Vash is a common enough name to have." **_

_The tall boy's left hand subconsciously moved up to finger Vash's new haircut, short and spiky, making Vash wince. Though he'd never admit it, he had rather liked his hair. Sure, it had been a little long and surprisingly wavy, but it had been his mother's favourite way of styling his hair, and he had wanted to keep it after she had left. His hair, naturally, had been golden blonde, but Eduard had convinced him to dye it pale, so that it was closer to matching his skin tone than his natural colour. As if that weren't enough, Vash refused to even so much as look in the mirror ever since buying his blue contacts in Austria, after sneaking through the border. He wasn't even in Austria anymore, but at an airport in Italy, and the entire time Eduard had still been the one forcefully brushing his hair and making him look presentable, as Vash would not so much as look at himself. Pale, skin tone, short hair, eyebrows dyed nearly platinum, blue eyes - no. Vash wanted to forget he had that appearance and remember only his past self, as the pictures of his past self had been burned. _"_**I know," **__Vash said. _"_**Thank you, Eduard."**_

"_**I'll leave you different messages here and there to let you know bits a pieces of yourself, and always keep your laptop with you, as you know that everyone plays with the internet everywhere else but at your other home. It doesn't matter if you didn't live in the city, and-"**_ _Eduard blabbered on, not being able to stop through the worry visibly clouding his eyes, but Vash cut him off by kissing him on the cheek. Two times on one, once on the other. People on either side of them stared disapprovingly, mistaking the action as a romance, but all Eduard did was flush angrily. _"_**Vash! You know you can't do those things here!" **__He lectured, though reluctantly. The bystanders took it differently, but Vash knew that Eduard was simply trying to make sure Vash didn't so something stupid that would tell the world of his real nationality. Kissing him like that qualified as something stupid._

"_**I know," **__he repeated, but he only backed away when Eduard's grip loosened. _"_**Goodbye, Eduard," **__Vash finally said, his voice cold and detached, and left Eduard gaping after the retreating back of his best friend, not even noticing Lillian beginning to follow her brother, or the fact that Vash didn't look back. Not once. Not until he was already on the steps to the plane, and even then, his glance held no emotion. When Vash took his seat on the plane, Lillian sitting right beside him, he didn't dare look through the window at the friend who had sacrificed his life's safety for Vash. Instead, he focused his gaze on the fabric of the seat in front of him, feeling a part of him wilt as the plane took off._

_He wasn't going to look back. That was weak._

_He wasn't going to cry._

* * *

**A/N: Well, this was rather short. But the end of the flash back just left too much of an amazing ending for me to pass up on. **

**Note: No, Eduard and Vash were never dating, or in love. Neither ever had a crush on each other. They were just close friends, which I normally wouldn't have done if it wasn't for the plot. After all, who else do you know other than Japan that is good with technology?**

_**Kiss at the end of flashback = As far as my knowledge stretches, the Swiss kiss each other on the cheek three times as a greeting and a goodbye. I don't know the particular order (I think it went left, right, left? Or reversed? I have no idea. I may be way off). I do know my Swiss cousin wouldn't stop kissing me, though, and when I asked, she said she was saying goodbye. I should probably get that confirmed... **_

**I should really start doing a posting schedule or something. Anyway, please review! I've seen that so many people are reading this story, but that confuses me, because the charts say that there are more viewers (not views) for Chapter 5 than Chapter 1 (as an example), and that doesn't make any sense. With so many viewers, though (around...30?), that keep on reading, it brings me down a little to know that I have no idea what they think of the story. I'm writing this for youuu (and my entertainment, of course, but mostly you guys). Please do let me know your thoughts! c;**

**-Canadia, out!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Sometimes, It Takes a Bomb ****(SITAB)**

Chapter 8

* * *

The next morning, it was Vash's cellphone that woke him up. The only problem about that was the fact that he didn't quite remember having owned a cellphone. Especially one that was translated all into English.

"It is newest...," Lillian paused as she reached to pick up the touch screen from beside Vash's bedside, leaning against the wall beside it. He stared at her uncomprehendingly as she seemed lost in a frustrated tangle of thought. "Newest...kid? No, that does not sound right...," she trailed off, before just shaking her head and apparently giving up.

**"...I can't understand you, Lilli,"** Vash nearly growled in response to his sister's mumblings, promptly thrown into a foul mood upon waking up to modern devices he had no idea how to use, and English words to top. He had had enough of that the day before. Why did cellphone models have to change quite literally every week, anyway? Lillian merely shrugged, and her blonde brother took that moment to look at her more closely. "**And, how are you already dressed?" **he added to showcase his discovery.

"Wakes up early, I played with telephone. It is not that hard," Lillian answered in her broken English, though still rather understandable. "Sam gave in night, mein thoughts tell." Vash frowned and leaned forward, as if that would allow himself to take a better look at the language that had flown from his sibling's mouth.

"**Please. Stop speaking in English," **he began, too groggy to honestly say much else, as he rolled out from underneath his bed covers. After waking up and checking the computer the day before, he had found it to be near midnight, and was only able to go back to sleep many hours later. It was simply to be expected that his sister had woken up earlier than him, given the fact that she had slept the entire time he had been up.

However, Lillian shook her head, causing her brother to halt in all his movements and stare accusingly at her. In his gaze, he couldn't help but reveal his curiousity, but also his confusion. Was his sister shaking her head at his orders to not speak in English? "You need learn," she answered confidently, a startling change to what Vash was used to. Of course, he couldn't quite understand what she was saying, other than the 'you' and that she was addressing him. It was the tone of her voice that threw him off, and gave him the impression that his sweet Lillian had already thought more than a little bit on the subject at hand. Vash's eyebrows drew together at the lack of communication. To give him credit, Lillian was surprised as well. She honestly had no idea how terrible her brother truly was at the English language to not be able to understand what she considered such simple, probably incorrect, sentences.

"You learn," she repeated, pointing at him, and then at her head. Thankfully, he seemed to get it.

"**You learn?" **Vash asked, and Lillian smiled. A bright, large smile, and one that effectively cut off Vash's oncoming protests.

There was a good minute of silence, with him staring at his own bare toes half out of bed, that he spoke. "...Du learn?"

Lillian shook her head again, but the small smile was still attached, clinging on desperately. She corrected him. "You," she said, pointing to his chest, "not du. You."

"You learn?" he translated, his voice holding the lift of a question.

To Vash's relief, his sister nodded, enthusiasm carrying all her features to spread throughout the room. She clenched her fists in excitement. To be truthful, Vash didn't appreciate how Lillian looked down at him like he was a child learning his first steps, and he stood up to erase the sensation, but it wouldn't go away. Attempting to prevent a scowl from hopping onto his face was suddenly a particularly hard task.

"You learn," said the girl, pointing to Vash. "I learn," she said, pointing to herself.

"You learn," copied Vash, pointing to himself, and he was about to move on, but she shook her head once more, willing him to think. Immediately, he was able to catch the meaning of what she said. "I learn," he switched, pointing to himself, and then, "you learn," he said, while pointing to his sister.

Perhaps he felt childish, but he was content. Anything to see those emerald green eyes before him brighten like they did. Whether or not it was to a petty achievement.

Vash was quick to get up and comb through his hair with his fingers. His sister helped him after presenting her famous blue ribbon to the blonde boy, who successfully tied it into her hair. They hadn't been given new clothes as of late, having lost their belongings when Lillian lost her leg, but it didn't feel odd to them in the slightest as they went down the hall; Lillian with her crutches on her lap and being wheeled in the chair they found sitting outside the door, just as they had left it. All Vash did was take off the green jacket he had worn all throughout the previous day and drape it over his sister's shoulders, who wore a simple pink turtleneck. When she put it on correctly, Vash decided that at a quick eye, anyone would think that they had changed clothes.

Upon seeing the secretary, a man different from the other day, Lillian asked Vash to put back the chair. However, the secretary must have caught word of the pair, for he shook his head and made a show of not accepting it. Hesitantly, Vash ended up wheeling Lillian through the door and slowly lowering it down the stair steps.

When they had reached the bottom, he frowned. "**Why can't you just teach me English through speaking in German? It would be easier," **reasoned the boy, but all his sister did was flash him a happy smile, and he didn't pursue her choice of teaching tactics any farther.

It was shocking how suddenly their roles had been flipped.

* * *

They were halfway to the bus stop when Vash told Lillian to get off the wheelchair. She readily obeyed and took up her crutches while her brother folded the chair up, and they proceeded walking and hopping the rest of the way.

At the bus stop, they were early for the buses themselves, but there was still an arguable number of people in a checkered crowd standing and sitting in wait. Half of them turned to stare at the two as they approached, and Vash moved to help his sister lay on the grass below, before spotting the yellow bus out of the corner of his eye and thinking better of the action. He gestured for her to stand, and let her lean on him as he supported her fragile weight easily in front of the edge of the sidewalk.

Vash was painstakingly close to succeeding in the prevention of his sister meeting a certain brunette, but as fate would have it, his hopes were not to be carried through. At the sound of a familiar voice behind him, Vash nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Hello, Vash," Roderich said as he walked towards them. Lillian's eyes widened in curiousity as they flew towards her brother, who only grunted in irritation. She turned back towards the new boy.

"You know mine bruder?" asked the blonde girl, and Roderich was taken aback at how sociable she came off as. How very different from her brother.

The brunette smiled. "Of course," he answered. "We're in most of the same classes, after all." Roderich paused. "I hope you don't mind my bluntness, but may I ask for your name?" he said, after a moment of thought.

Lillian looked thrilled at this, and whipped her head around to face her sibling, completely forgetting about her vow to speak in only English within all the excitement. "**You never told me you made friends!" **she spoke, rapid-fast words coming out of her mouth quicker than Vash could pick them up, and rolling her shoulders in an equivalent action to jumping up and down. "**I'm so happy for you, big brother!" **nearly squealed the girl, just as her bus rolled up. Vash had correctly assumed it to be the middle school bus, based on all the younger students lining up to board.

The blonde boy didn't answer, save for a death glare flung in Roderich's direction, and instead poked at his sister's back in a sign to get her moving. She obediently did, but not without tilting her neck to address the Austrian. "My name is Lillian," she said, before continuing without a moment's hesitation. "I hope it is not bother to ask, but could you please, please help mine brother?" she asked, her voice contrastingly quiet compared to before, yet clearly built up with a sort of joy. "Help he needs. English hard is for him. I am trying, but-"

Lillian was cut off as the two boys on either side of her spoke at once.

"**You're going to be late for the bus, Lilli!" **huffed her brother impatiently, attempting to divert attention from the conversation he sadly couldn't understand and angered that his sweet little sister was speaking with the Austrian boy, while Roderich only replied with a,

"I'll do my best. After all, I _am _his school guide, whether he likes it or not."

Roderich didn't think that the girl understood him completely, there was definitely a new kind of energy in the swinging of her legs as Lillian hauled herself onto the bus, too quickly for Vash to have time to ask where he should place her wheelchair. The object was left in his arms as the bus doors closed, and the yellow vehicle took off.

Roderich turned to the blonde boy beside him. "Still not any good at English?" he said, not expecting any answer. To his surprise, Vash whipped his head around to face him.

"Lilli is mine, not yours," he growled, daring Roderich to say anything with his eyes alone. All the brunette did was blink before answering.

"I still find it funny how the only English sentences you can correctly form are ones directed negatively towards myself," he responded, and Vash didn't even bother translating. He just threw his hands up and walked away.

* * *

"I'm sorry, but you didn't give me a bus pass the other day, and I can't let you get on until you give me one signed with your parent's permission," said a shockingly gruff voice as a middle aged woman, sitting in the bus driver's seat, threw her arm out in front of Vash. He didn't quite know what she had asked of him, other than that she had said she was sorry for an unknown reason, and was preventing the blonde from walking farther down the bus hall.

Vash had been the last to board when the high school bus came around five minutes after Lillian's had left. During that amount of time, he and Roderich hadn't said another word, though the brunette kept obviously lingering behind him. It was uncomfortable and frustrating, and the blonde boy had been relieved when the next bus came and he found that everyone was stepping on - indicating that it was the one he himself was suppose to take a ride within. Until, of course, the bus driver stopped him from going any deeper into the vehicle than the top of the steps. "What?" he asked, unfortunately clueless.

"You heard me," repeated the bus driver with an irritated air, and Vash could only wonder why it was that all the adults had no idea about his language 'handicap'. Wasn't the entire school staff suppose to be aware of every student's personal life, or something? Good thing he was able to pick apart the simple sentence.

"No. I do not understand," he said, thick European accent showing once more as he spoke one of the first full English sentences he had learned before heading to America. His feet shuffled anxiously, acutely aware of all the eyes trained on him from the inside of the bus. At least half of the students there had quieted and turned to watch the commotion.

The bus driver wasn't happy. "Yes, you do, young man, and I'm afraid you'll have to step off my bus. Right now." She gestured towards the still open doors of the yellow vehicle, and Vash's face could only flush. Everything was so complicated. It was clear that she was telling him to get off, but if he got off, then he wouldn't be able to get to school, and it wouldn't do good for his 'staying out of direct attention', not that he was any good at that idea in the first place, if he skipped the second day of attending the high school - right in the middle of the year.

She opened her mouth, probably to repeat what she had said, until another voice interrupted the mostly one sided conversation. "Karen?" spoke a voice just behind the front row seat, and the bus driver, apparently named Karen, craned her neck to see who had spoken. When she saw who it was, her expression remained scrunched up in displeasure, though her tone softened in its anger.

"Roderick?" she said, confirming the voice's identity, before shaking her head. "Not right now. I'm in the middle of something," Karen answered swiftly, moving as if to face Vash again, until Roderich replied.

"No one must have informed you, but that's Vash Klein-," he began, and Karen's eyes narrowed.

"I'm aware of that," she said, but that didn't stop Roderich from continuing.

"-a new student who doesn't know very much English," he finished, staring straight at the bus driver. "I was appointed to be his guide, and was going to sit in the same seat as him, though I wrongly assumed that you had knowledge of his situation, as I wasn't told to get him a pass for permission to occupy the bus.

There was silence in the front rows as Karen's forehead bunched together in thought, and she moved to stare at the blonde boy in front of her. Vash shuffled impatiently, and awkwardly, under her gaze, uncertain of what was going on, but slightly reassured that whatever Roderich had said had calmed the woman down. Finally, she dropped her arm and glared at him with an out of place, unsure kind of expression. "I'll let him go for now," Karen said, looking at Roderich through the mirror above the driver's window, "but I expect a bus pass from the office tomorrow, or else he is not getting back on. Clear?"

"Absolutely," Roderich agreed, and she nodded in satisfaction. At her gesture to go, Vash began awkwardly walking down the hall, wheelchair remaining gripped and folded in his hands. He tried passing by Roderich's seat without looking at him, but before he could protest, the brunette had gripped his arm and gestured towards the empty spot beside him, before pointing around at all the filled seats. Reluctantly, the blonde boy sat down, a grimace visible on his face, and the bus began to move.

There was silence between the boys as the rest of the bus filled up with noise once more, until Roderich turned to Vash and frowned at the absence of school supplies. "Where's your backpack?" the brunette asked, and when Vash did everything in his free will to not respond, Roderich reached over him and pointed to the backpack sitting in another student's lap across the hall; a movement that the blonde boy was forced to look at.

Without meaning to, Vash opened his mouth to repeat what Roderich had said. "Backpack," he copied, and ignoring the brunette's curious glance, switched to German. "**Backpack," **he translated. The blonde boy's already present frown deepened. "No here," he replied, and the Austrian beside him couldn't help but chuckle at the simple mistake.

"'Not' here," he corrected. Vash growled a quick 'shut up,' and their petty conversation was lapsed again into the quiet.

* * *

**A/N: **

**Again, I'm so sorry for the lack of...anything...in this chapter. As you can see, this was to show Vash's development of the all-too-complicated English language. And, of course, the development of his and Roderich's...friendship - thing. There should be more of that in the upcoming chapters, as this story should start to get moving.**

**Anywho-**

**I was debating whether or not to up this fiction to an M rating. I would really like to get feedback on this decision! As I was planning out some future scenes, there is quite a bit of mention of the 'f word', and that wouldn't necessarily be a T rating. At the same time, I wouldn't like people getting the wrong idea by taking this to an M. Thoughts?**

**Please do review, and have a nice day. |D**

**-Canadia**


	9. Chapter 9

**Sometimes, It Takes A Bomb (SITAB)**

Chapter 9

* * *

As to be expected, Vash was the first one off the bus when it stopped at the school, already to the front doors by the time Roderich was able to follow suit. Immediately spotting the blonde head, Roderich began to run towards him, attempting to stay by his side, but unfortunately for the Austrian, Vash had other intentions. He easily outdistanced the other.

Huffing irritably, he dug the class schedule form that he had placed into his pocket at the end of the other day and brought it to his face, hoping to follow it to his last period class and retrieve the school binder that he had left there. With the paper out in front of him, he forgot to look where he was going, and before he knew it, Vash was laying face-down on the ground.

"Watch where you're going, git!" fumed the person he had apparently crashed against, another blonde boy with green eyes and absolutely ridiculous eyebrows leaning against the hallway wall. Books were scattered haphazardly at his feet, and his eyes alone showed his amount of anger at having been disturbed. Vash scowled, getting to his feet and uselessly brushing off his pant legs, before turning his attention to search the sea of papers for his schedule. The blonde boy in front of him took a deep breath as if to continue onto a rant, until he paused and seemed to think about something for a second. Vash frowned in mild interest. "Bloody hell! You're the new student, aren't you?" said the bushy-browed boy in surprise, and Vash's frown increased. He really only knew that the stranger had sworn with 'hell', and that he was surprised to see Vash. Not much information at all. "Nevermind, of course you are if you can't seem to understand me. Ijust didn't expect to see you in school so early," the boy went on, before holding out his hand in a gesture that Vash could finally understand. "Arthur Kirkland," he stated simply, for the benefit of the other.

Vash ignored the hand and went on searching for his paper on the floor, which seemed to enrage Arthur more. "Ungrateful idiot!" huffed the bushy-browed one, glaring daggers at Vash's back before finally seeming to remember something. He kneeled to pick up a bulky object from the floor behind Arthur,, and held it out to Vash with a scowl to compete with Vash's own. The Swiss boy stared at his school binder in the hands of the boy he had just met with confusion. "The Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Johnson, told me you left this in her classroom. Since I'm Student Body President this year, I was going to leave it in the Student Body meeting room for you to pick up at a call from the office during first period, but I guess that won't be necessary now." Vash paid no mind to anything that Arthur was saying, instead grabbing his binder by its handle and letting it swing by his side as he picked up his newly found schedule from the floor. This did nothing at all to improve Arthur's mood, but Vash could frankly care less as he turned around and began walking down the hall. It wasn't as if he would be able to hold a conversation with Arthur in the first place.

Before Vash could register what was going on, there was a shout from the hall behind him somewhere along the lines of, "Iggy! There you are!" and suddenly Arthur was far in front of him. Vash stopped to stare at the rapidly fleeing back of the temperamental boy as footsteps behind him pounded closer, and yet another teenageR passed him by, the same American that Vash had seen the other day during lunch. "Dude, wait up!" yelled the American boy in the same volume of voice as before as he chased Arthur through the halls.

Shaking his head as if to clear it, Vash folded his class schedule neatly and slipped it back into his pocket. He turned his head to glance along the walls of the hallway, hoping to spot a clock somewhere that told him the time. His searches were fruitless, however, and the blonde instead took to sitting on the ground and resting head against the back of the lockers, yawning despite his attempts to not.

The blonde boy found suddenly found himself alone.

It wasn't a new feeling - not at all. He was used to being alone, wasn't he, after all that had happened? Yet, Vash couldn't help but feel odd and uncomfortable at the sensation of silence, an occurrence he had once loved so dearly, but now found horribly unnerving. Luckily, he didn't stay alone for long as trickles of students drifted in, a trickle which soon turned into a flood, and then laughter and noise bombarded his ears almost painfully.

But it didn't help.

Vash only felt more alone than ever.

He was given odd glances as, very uncharacteristically, the blonde boy scooped his knees into his arms and laced his fingers together at his shins. Self conscious might have been a good choice of words to describe him at that moment, but what beat every other word in the dictionary to tell his mood was the word _small._ He was alone, and so very small, compared to the world.

So small.

And weak.

Small and weak.

Vash narrowed his eyes threateningly at the tile ground, but it only stared back.

He was weak. He was cowering in the corner of the hallway like a weak little damsel in distress. He could not be weak.

Yet, no matter how many times he repeated in his head that he could not be weak, he still could not make himself get up. Every muscle in his body refused. His thoughts raged against his shell of a solid figure, and they conducted a miniature war, so miniature compared to the rest of the entire world that no one could see it.

_Get up. _But he could not.

_Meet their stares. _But he could not lift his head up.

_Shake off the hand that had just been placed on that shoulder. _But he wanted that hand there. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Vash knew that he wanted that hand there. He didn't want it to leave.

"Are you okay?"

It was easy to understand. After all that Vash had learned about the English language, he should have been able to understand that sentence perfectly; had it not been for the slight fact that he wasn't paying the least amount of attention. Instead of answering, he just stayed there, in that position, wanting to blow up in an overdramatised reaction to protect his secluded sanity, yet at the same time, hoping beyond hope that the hand did not move away.

It made Vash feel safe. He had yet to register whose hand it even was.

So they stayed that way. Vash and the hand, and the person belonging to the hand bent down to sit beside the blonde boy. Vash did not move his head to figure out who it was. Perhaps the veil of mystery was good for his mind. Mystery meant that nothing was connected to anything, and that was exactly what Vash needed.

Nothing and anything, both at once.

But when the bell rang, signalling the start of classes, and the figure stood up to stretch out his hand, it was the lack of mystery that caused Vash to abruptly stand up and march away.

Comfortless.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Yes, quick update, but yes, it is extremely short. Sorry about that! I originally had intended to make it longer, but after I wrote that last section, I just decided it was too good of an ending opportunity to pass up on.**

**Read and review, guys! I hope you are enjoying SITAB, honestly. c; I know the handful of people who have reviewed are, and that gives me so much motivation to keep writing this story, you don't even know. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you continue to have a positive reaction from this Edelweiss~**

**-Canadia**


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